


War of the Immortals

by TsubasaKKruger



Category: Victorious
Genre: Almost everyone is at least a bit Out of Character, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/F, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-10-13 02:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10504815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsubasaKKruger/pseuds/TsubasaKKruger
Summary: When Jade West becomes prey in a game of chase, she avoids death only thanks to the opportune arrival of unexpected saviors. And so she learns that not only is she not human, but the reason for an upcoming war between Heaven and Hell... a war in which she has no choice but to stand to the side and watch as her most beloved fights for her life.





	1. Truth of birth

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Victorious belongs to Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon. Anything in this story that isn't part of the canon universe either belongs to Tsubasa K. Kruger or to someone else who will be appropriately credited in the corresponding chapter.
> 
> About the timeline: As the author doesn't think there was any actual timeline in the series, Tori Vega's transfer to Hollywood Arts will be set to have happened on January; certain canon events will be implicitly or explicitly referred to in the story, while others (like Tori's love interests and her kissing Beck) can be deduced to not have happened at all. "War of the Immortals" begins the summer before the gang's senior year at Hollywood Arts, and every event from then on will be given a specific date; some events from the series will be vaguely mentioned to have happened during the course of this story.

_**July 22, 2012. Florida, USA.** _

Jade runs, barely managing to stay upright as her feet trip over themselves and multiple unseen obstacles on the ground. Even if she could see farther than a few feet, she wouldn't be able to see anything other than woods surrounding her in all directions. It's a new moon, so it's a miracle she can even _see_.

She's being hunted, she knows it, and it feels chillingly terrifying to be in a position she'd so often laughed at, when characters in horror and slasher movies stupidly run in circles, trying to escape the inevitable. She still has hope that her position isn't completely like that, and silently vows to stop mocking those characters if she makes it out of this.

Whoever is following her, chasing her, lets out a laugh that echoes from all directions. Her breath catches in her throat as a cold sweat runs down her spine and goosebumps almost distract her, and she nearly meets the ground when she trips this time.

Aside from that _thing_ 's laugh, her own harsh breathing and her clumsy steps, everything is dead silent in a wide area around her. Jade's heartbeat pounds loudly in her ears, almost drowning any other sound, terrified tears cloud her eyes and make her race even more difficult, and even though she can't hear her pursuer running she _knows_ they are close behind.

She doesn't know how long she's been running away – all she knows is the hurt in her limbs and the terror in her heart and the burn of her lungs... and it certainly isn't good for people to run with their abdomen dripping blood like hers is doing.

"Why are you still running?" the question echoes from all directions at once. "Not that I am complaining, mind, but... you must know how pointless it is to run."

The voice now comes as a low whisper right next to her ear, and Jade can't help but to jump and whirl away from it and the sickeningly sweet smell of cold blood their breath exudes.

"I won't give up" she swears, sounding a lot more confident than she is actually feeling.

The monster chuckles coldly in response. "Is that so? What a pleasure. There is little I love more than a good hunt."

She's resumed her frenetic pace by then, returning to the desperate race against death she's been trapped in for what feels like years. She can't die. Not here, not now. There are still many things she wants to do, things she _needs_ to do.

Jade cannot afford to be killed right now, least of all by a psychopath who swore to be a demon, sent from Hell to end her life under orders from Lucifer himself.

_I knew I shouldn't have come. I should be hanging out with the gang in LA, not... running for my life wherever this is_ , she thinks desperately right before she narrowly avoids a low-hanging branch she _swears_ wasn't there a second before.

"Yes, Jade, keep running. You are certainly fun to play with" the bastard laughs.

She isn't having fun and they know it. But it's clear that, to them, her fear and growing desperation are hilarious. She tries not to think about what the obviously insane _person_ could have done before – is she the first victim of a new serial killer, or just a new entry in a growing list no one has managed to figure out?

All of a sudden, she slams against something small, warm and a bit familiar. Tiny, delicate hands wrap around her forearms to keep her upright, and a pair of– _unnatural_ light blue eyes look at her in concern from the well-known face of her childhood friend.

Jade stares at the Cat-lookalike in wide-eyed wonder for a few seconds before the situation catches up with her, and she tugs on her forearms in an attempt to get her moving. "You have to run!" she gasps, desperate.

The shorter girl just smiles. "Everything's going to be fine, Jade. Don't worry."

"H-how do you know my name?" she asks, growing scared again at the possibility of this seemingly innocent girl being friends with her pursuer, or perhaps another after her life.

The girl's smile grows, eerily similar to that of Cat's when she thinks someone's said something unbelievably stupid – it doesn't happen often, which makes it remarkable enough that Jade has this expression memorized. "I–"

"Well, well, well" the hunter's voice comes out of nowhere. Both Jade and the other girl tense up, and the dark-haired teen slowly turns around to properly look at her pursuer for the first time.

He is a tall man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, with dark hair and pasty skin covered in a strange pattern of tattoos, his cocky smirk and haughty step complemented by a pair of arrogant ruby red eyes. He stops relatively away from them, hands confidently inside the pockets of his black cargo pants, and he tilts his head to the side as the smaller girl moves around Jade to stand between them.

"You must be Catherine Valentine, then. Are you not a bit young to be out on the woods this late, pretty girl?" he asks mockingly.

A hand on Jade's left shoulder makes her look to the side, where she is met by a guy creepily similar to Robbie Shapiro but with different eyes, a pair of light blue that glance at her softly before they harden as they stare at the man.

"I'd ask what you want with her but – it's a bit obvious" the redheaded girl says sharply.

"Then you must know this is nothing personal, just a man doing his job."

"And _you_ must know that we have jobs to do too" the teen boy answers, his hand tightening on Jade's shoulder. She thinks maybe she should feel _more_ , but she can only faintly note that he sounds a lot more confident than the Robbie she knows – proof, in her mind, that (eyes aside) this can't be the same guy. "You won't touch her."

"Oh? And I suppose you will stop me, Robert? Certainly you should know you are not strong enough to stop me even if I was... fighting _fair_."

"Yes, but that's why we brought backup" another voice chimes in, just as a hand comes to rest on Jade's free shoulder and two figures circle the growing group to stand in front of them.

She's too numb (with the shocks of the night and her steady blood loss) to feel surprised when she realizes that the three newcomers look like the rest of the gang, with the duo that look like Tori and Andre standing before them while the last, Beck, stays by her right.

The man's face twists with a wild mix of emotions (recognition, annoyance, hesitation, a touch of fear) when he looks at the Tori doppelganger. "So low have you sunk since we last met that you are working with their kind now, Rivot? It is a shame to see that you insist on seriously insulting a name you were beginning to be worthy of."

Tori's voice, when she answers, is harsh. "I left that behind, Idvke."

The man snarls. "So be it, then, _Zkhoerjae_."

Tori tenses and, for a heartbeat, no one moves; then, Tori and Andre rush forward to meet Jade's pursuer head on. Just as they clash, Cat tugs Jade to make her sit on the ground, leaning against her body, which is fortunate because the combination between her injury and everything else is making her lightheaded.

"What the fuck is going on?" she asks hoarsely, eyes travelling to the fighting group.

"It's us, Jade," Beck answers. "I know we look different, but everything has an explanation. We'll tell you later. Just trust us for now, okay?"

She looks into his eyes, displaying the same honest emotion as always in all their dark brown glory, and faintly wonders why his eyes haven't changed. But she nods, in part because she doesn't have much of a chance to make them talk before they want to.

(Also in part because they are protecting her from that psychopath, so she isn't going to complain any time soon.)

"Great" he smiles faintly and looks at Robbie – and Jade is finally starting to believe that they all may actually be her friends. "Robs, you're up."

He rolls his eyes, but kneels beside the girls as Beck stands again, vanishing something that looks suspiciously like a flamethrower with a grunt and a wave of his arm. Cat gently pries her hands away from the increasingly worrying wound and the normally awkward boy leans closer, frowning at her half-open stomach.

"Great, a sadist" he says in disgust.

Then, Jade's attention wavers back to the fight at the sound of a scream of frustration – and it's very obvious that the one who yelled was Idvke, because he jumps back and tries to regain his footing before Tori is in front of him again, a sword of what looks like black smoke on her hand, and Andre gestures with his hands as a tree appears out of nowhere against the man's back and he has to duck in order to avoid losing his head.

"Aren't you going to help her?" Jade manages to ask, looking back to see Robbie searching his pockets and Cat staring intently at her.

Beck snorts. "We'd only get in her way."

"Found it!" Robbie exclaims, pulling a small beaded bracelet with a number of charms hanging from it. It's too dark to see them clearly and, when the fight produces another burst of fire, he already has most of the bracelet inside his fist. "Alright then, stay still please" he says, fist hovering above her midsection before he mutters something under his breath. He frowns. "Well, that's not good. Beck! Do you know how to deal with poison yet?"

"Poison?!" Jade definitely-not-yelps.

"I don't, sorry" her ex-boyfriend answers, without taking his eyes away from the conflict. "Keep her steady for a couple more minutes, Tori will be done by then."

Robbie nods with a grimace. He turns back to her then, returning his hand to her stomach and starting to mutter again.

Soon losing interest, Jade looks at the fight again, barely managing to contain her surprise when she notices that Tori, sweet, harmless Tori, is _winning_.

"She's the best fighter between all of us" Cat says when she notices where her attention lays. "I'm pretty sure she could easily take us all together with her eyes closed and both hands behind her back while making sure nothing happens to you."

"Seriously?" Jade asks, not really able to see that girl being good at anything that involves violence. Except perhaps self-defense, but even then she'd be skeptical. "Is this the same Tori Vega we're talking about?"

Cat gives a strained smile, which she only sees through the corner of her eye. "She hides it well."

Jade's retort dies in her throat when she becomes a witness to the truth behind her best friend's words – because right in that moment, Tori vanishes from one place and appears in front of her opponent with a burst of inhumane speed, Idvke's eyes widening just a split second before the smoky blade separates his head from his shoulders.

The girl that Jade could have sworn was the most harmless of their little group stays in her half-crouched position for five seconds as the body falls to the ground. In the silence that follows, her quiet snarl is just as audible as the vacuum sound of her sword dissipating, and she sighs and rubs the back of her neck before turning around.

Jade can't keep herself from gasping when ruby red eyes meet hers. Tori looks away first, directing her attention at Beck and Andre, who step forward in anticipation.

"Burn the body" she says, lowering her hand. "Discreetly."

They both nod and move towards the corpse, while Tori comes to kneel next to the extremely shocked actress. She smiles (nervously) and it would feel as if everything was back on track if it wasn't for all the reasons this whole night feels like a nightmare.

"She's been poisoned" Robbie says, breaking the atmosphere. "I can't heal her."

Tori nods at him and requests both he and Cat move back. When they do, Jade is lying completely on the ground, teeth firmly together to keep a yelp of pain from leaving her when the movement pulls at the edges of the cut.

"Okay, Jade, this is going to sting a little, but soon you'll be all new" Tori says, gently posing the fingers of her right hand around the injury, thumb brushing against one end. "Now, breathe."

She places the middle and heart fingers of her left hand on the other end of the injury and speaks in gibberish, a low cadence of words that continues even as she slowly draws her left hand away and a trail of liquid leaves Jade's body in its effort to follow. It _does_ sting, but the pale teenager doesn't see what's so bad about it until the last drop separates from her blood and suddenly she feels the wound burn.

Tori twists her hand to form a sphere with the liquid, reacting to her curses with only a roll of her eyes as she freezes the sphere solid. Robbie kneels again, repeating his actions from minutes before and sighing in apparent relief when the cut seems to answer to his commands.

"There we go. How are you feeling, Jade?" he asks.

"Confused as fuck, how else do you think? What the hell is going on?"

"We'll talk once we're safe" Tori interrupts, standing up to throw the ball to the ongoing fire nearby, which is oddly _blue_ and devoid of heat, smell and smoke. "This place is too open."

"She's right" Andre agrees from his position next to the fire. "We have to get you out of here first. Robbie, is she safe for teleporting?"

"Probably" the bespectacled teen answers as he helps the girls up. "But there's a chance of it reopening if we put too much pressure on it. I wouldn't really feel comfortable with her putting any strain on her stomach for a day or so."

"Well, if the doc says so..." Andre sighs. "Wings out, everyone, we're flying."

"Wings– Flying?!" Jade asks, her voice more of a yelp.

She _does_ yelp when Andre, light blue eyes sparkling mischievously, picks her up and in one fluid motion launches himself to the air. The others are around them, but she's too distracted by the brilliant white feather wings sprouting from his back to notice when they get above the clouds.

"Where are we?" she asks in a quiet voice, lower than she'd intended. She's almost sure no one heard her when Andre answers, not looking at her.

"Still in Florida. It seems he knew you wouldn't be with us tonight."

"But– how? I didn't even... Wait, what?"

He frowns lightly. "We've been protecting you for years, Jade. It's been a while since anyone came after you, so we probably slacked off a little– not a mistake we're going to make again, that's for sure."

Cat appears to Andre's right, making Jade's eyes widen at the equally white wings holding her several feet off the ground. "How did he get you out in the woods? Weren't you supposed to be in the hotel? Did you go out?"

"... No, I didn't" Jade answers, trying not to think that the others probably have wings too. "I don't know what happened. I went to sleep and then I woke up in the middle of nowhere."

Andre looks at someone over Jade's head, frown displaying something between concern and confusion. Robbie speaks up from behind her, Andre's left.

"We should probably get you to a Sanctuary as soon as possible, then. No offense, guys," he adds, speaking to the two outside her range of vision, "but I'm not confident we could handle a big group even with Tori on our side."

"None taken" Beck answers from beneath them. "I'm not sure myself, either. The sooner we get to safety, the better."

"We're too vulnerable here" Tori adds from above. "This place isn't safe to begin with, but adding what just happened? I'm surprised no one has attacked us yet."

"Are we going to your place, Tori?" Robbie asks. "It's the closest to here, right?"

"It is" she answers. "But I don't care where we go so long as we get there _soon_."

The silence lasts a bit longer then, before Jade gathers the confidence to speak up again. "We're going back to LA?" Cat nods. "What about my dad?"

"We already took care of that. He thinks we'll stay at Tori's until he comes back– of course, we still might do just that. Tori had to convince him to let you go back, so that's why she was late."

"Excuse you, I wasn't late" Tori grumbles.

"Also, your dad isn't a target, so he'll be fine" Cat continues, ignoring their friend.

"What? So _I'm_ a target?"

Beck interrupts before anyone can think to answer. "Hurry up guys, we're entering California."

"So soon?" Jade asks, surprised, because she can swear not ten minutes have passed since they launched to the air.

None of her friends make it seem as if they heard her, which she takes as a sign to shut up and study her best friend, pointedly _not_ looking down – she's not normally afraid of heights, but they're so high up that even she is feeling a bit shaken up.

(Not to mention... wings. She can't trust those yet.)

All too quickly, they slow down until they're merely hovering above the clouds, and then they're suddenly plummeting down to the ground.

They land softly in the backyard of the very well-known Vega house, where the gang has practically established their base, before she can manage to emit the scream lodged in her throat. As soon as her feet shakily touch the ground, the back door is yanked open and Trina runs outside.

"Oh, thank the Lord you guys are fine!" she exclaims, launching a tight hug at a suddenly uncomfortable Tori.

"Fine? Fine?!" Jade retorts, almost as a shriek. "That bastard sliced my guts open!"

"I'm sure, but now you're healed and if you just go inside you'll be safe" Trina cuts her upcoming meltdown, gently pushing her past the glass doors. "Come on, quickly."

The rest of the gang, all of them with their eyes back to normal and no wings in sight, follow at a slightly more sedate pace. As soon as the glass door closes behind Tori's back, everyone seems to relax.

"Go to Tori's room and take a shower," Trina says, ushering Jade to the stairs. "You'll have your questions answered later – no offense, but you look terrible."

Frowning, the still confused girl moves to the second floor and to the room she's sneaked into more times than she cares to count. She enters the bathroom and looks to the mirror, swallowing a scream when her reflection proves the truth behind Trina's words.

She's a sight right out of a horror movie – her overall appearance making it seem as if she's spent a few days (or even weeks) living in the woods with no camping commodity, with leaves, mud and blood splattered all over her body. Her shirt also sports a large diagonal cut where she was wounded, along with several dozen rips that are more often than not matched by little cuts inflicted both by Idvke and the trees.

Jade grimaces at her reflection and quickly turns away, stripping as fast as she can before she steps into the shower to allow the how water to clean away as much of the dirt as she can without her moving. When it becomes obvious that nothing else will be removed, she layers a sponge in soap to thoroughly scrub her body, ignoring the sting from her remaining injuries – if she ran with an open stomach, she can manage to clean herself now.

She's a little mystified at the thin line, a few shades paler than her skin, that marks the place where she was cut open. It's... interesting that her friends can heal grave injuries so quickly, to say the least, but she's _very_ curious as to how they can even do that.

When she finally closes the water and opens the curtain, she's met with a fluffy towel and a change of clothes resting folded on the sink, her own ruined attire nowhere to be seen. She stays still for a moment before she dries off and dresses quickly, suddenly reminded that she was promised some very much needed answers – some of which might explain why she didn't realize someone coming in.

Walking down the stairs mere four minutes later, she finds the gang plus Trina sitting silently on the couches, some random movie being ignored on the TV. She feels a bit self-conscious at the stares directed at her (she's wearing sweatpants and an oversized HA jersey, both belonging to Tori and not the kind of clothes anyone has ever seen her in), but she crushes the feeling and sweeps her eyes over her friends.

She perches herself on the edge of the couch that's closest to the door, directly across from the Vega sisters and Beck, with the remaining trio sitting between them. There's a full two minutes of silence before she gathers her wits, takes a deep breath and tucks her bare feet under her body.

"Okay, so... What's going on? Who the hell was that psycho?"

"That was Idvke Groumnhold – coincidentally, an assassin from Hell," Tori answers. "A damn good one, at that" she adds grumpily, as if the admission physically pained her.

"Excuse me? An assassin from _where_?"

"Hell" Tori repeats, looking as if she expects Jade to jump up and run away – which she might just do, if only to escape all this oddness.

"He was a Demon" Andre speaks up, glancing at Tori and back at Jade. "I'm curious, though – didn't he tell you?"

"You mean, when he was trying to kill me?" the girl retorts dryly. "He did. I assumed he was insane."

"Well, he _was_ a Demon" Robbie pipes up. "It's part of the package."

The group snorts at that, as if sharing some sort of inner joke.

"So... what does that have to do with you guys?" Jade asks, a bit afraid of hearing the answer.

"We–" Andre points to Cat, Robbie and himself– "are angels. Your Guardian Angels, more specifically. We're supposed to protect you from Demons – it's a full time job, if you must know."

Jade looks at the other three.

"We're Fallen Demons" Beck answers, half-smiling, before she can ask about _their_ involvement. "I was kicked out of Hell when I was five. My parents found me in Egypt, where I landed after being expelled, and then took me to Canada – so I'm not _actually_ Canadian, only, y'know, raised there."

"So you're adopted?"

"No, no. My parents were kicked out when they were little, too, and I was... claimed by Hell when I was born." He shrugs. "I was lucky, since I had family on Earth already – my parents, aunt Holly and uncle David had no one."

Jade frowns. "You have an aunt and– aren't those the names of the Vegas?" she asks, suddenly getting a sinking feeling that she knows nothing about her friends.

(The fact that none of them is human is _almost_ as important as the fact that the demons of the group are apparently all closely related to each other – because the latter implies that there was _absolutely no reason at all_ for her to be jealous about anything happening between Tori and Beck, which... kind of makes her feel stupid.)

"Uhm, yeah. Aunt Holly is my dad's older sister."

"So Tori and Trina are actually your cousins?"

"... Yeah?"

Jade presses her temples to hold off a headache. "We're going to come back to this later, when I'm a little less confused and there are no more important things to discuss, but first – how can a– a _Demon_ even be kicked out of _Hell_? What did you even do, be nice to an old lady?"

A smile tugs at the corners of Beck's mouth. "Kinda. I refused to kill one. She was the only family her little grandson had, so I flatly refused to touch her and Lucifer threw me out."

The girl looks at the Vega sisters. "And what about you?"

Trina shrugs. "Kicked out when I was five, too, after refusing to kill a baby. I landed in some random South American island, I don't even remember the name anymore. My parents are also Fallen Demons, as you probably deduced, kicked out when they were kids."

Tori hesitates for a moment before she answers in a slow, quiet voice. "I was expelled the summer before freshman year. Landed in Russia."

Jade can't help but to gape at the younger Vega. "I thought that you would've been the first to be kicked out, not them – but you were _fifteen_?"

Tori shrugs uneasily, but Beck is the one to speak up. "Well, Trina and I didn't even get to complete our first missions, so there's no way she could have been the first to leave seeing as she's younger than us." He manages a half-smile. "I swear that she's the strongest Fallen Demon in the world. You should be glad that she's helping protect you."

"Most Fallen Demons are kicked out before they're seven years old." Trina explains. "I don't think that a lot of Demons are expelled when they're older."

"Seventeen in the last five hundred years," Tori agrees, "including me. I doubt any after I left." She hesitates. "The older you grow, the darker your soul becomes. It's... almost impossible to be kicked out once you enter your teens."

"Yet you were" Jade comment, and Tori smiles something that doesn't quite reach her eyes and seems almost bitter.

"Well, of course. My crime was the worst a Demon can commit."

"What did you do? Pray to God?"

She lets out a mocking smile as Beck and Trina, followed by the angels, start laughing hysterically, which makes Jade suppress a smile. The tension is finally relieved, although Jade still feels nervous and scared and she knows her friends are aware of that.

She hopes they know she's not scared of _them_.

They watch the lame movie currently on TV for a moment, allowing the mindless comedy to ease them a bit more into their usual dynamics. Soon, however, Jade can't take it anymore and lets out an exploding breath.

"Okay, what the hell is going on? Why did that... Idvke guy try to kill me?"

The six exchange uneasy glances, the movie once again forgotten, before Andre shifts nervously and scratches the back of his head.

"Andre?"

"It's kind of complicated," he says. "You see, Lucifer has wanted you dead since even before you were born because... well, because you weren't actually supposed to be born."

" _Excuse me_?"

"It's to do with your parents," Cat explains. "Your dad is a Lost Demon and your mother is a Lost Angel – those are the immortals without memories, who fell out of Heaven or Hell by mistake and can't be retrieved by their people."

"It's actually a bit more complicated than that," Tori interjects, "but that's the gist of it. The point is, your parents weren't even supposed to _meet_ each other and you weren't supposed to exist – but they did, and you do. You're a one-of-a-kind half-blood, Jade, so no one has any clue about how your powers will turn out to be... if they do appear at some point, that is, which no one is sure if they will."

Jade frowns, desperately trying to wrap her mind around the concept that apparently she's not human at all and she has assassins after her head due to some unfortunate circumstance of her birth. "So, the Devil wants me dead and keeps sending Demons to kill me because I'm the only half-blood in history?"

"Angel-Demon half-blood," Beck corrects. "There are quite a lot of Human half-bloods – take Robbie, for example, and Andre's a quarter-Human as well. You're special because you're the result of the mix between both immortal races, something that hasn't happened before. You're new and unpredictable, and Lucifer doesn't _like_ new and unpredictable."

"We aren't just protecting you because we consider you our friend, though we'd still do it if it was the only reason – we're actually also doing our jobs, since God wants you alive." Robbie looks at the Demons and back at the newly revealed half-blood. "I can't speak for all of us, of course."

Trina shrugs. "Well, I was bored, and trying to keep a half-blood alive is entertaining."

Beck chuckles at that and smiles at his ex-girlfriend. "Turns out I really liked you. _And_ I just love to piss off any and all Demons that come trying to kill you."

"Well, thank you." Jade snaps. "It's nice to know you care."

The others laugh, even Tori (who's been almost brooding the whole night) cracking a smile at the usual easy banter displayed among their group's members.

Jade barely manages to bite back a yawn, though she can't contain the one that follows immediately, and she's suddenly hyperaware of how deeply _exhausted_ the chase, the return to safety and the subsequent explanations left her. She wonders why the adrenaline didn't abandon her earlier, but dismisses it as a proof of how uneasy she was about ignoring her friends' stance in the whole affair.

Not that she's not going to insist on more explanations later.

"Come on," Tori says, standing up, "you need to sleep. We can talk more tomorrow."

Jade nods and stands to follow, waving goodbye to the others without words or even looking at them.

She knows they're still a bit worried, maybe thinking that she'll be nervous about being alone with Tori because she was the last Demon to leave Lucifer's clutches just around two years ago, but she's not. She _knows_ she should probably be mildly wary about the seemingly harmless girl that's actually the mean one, but she honestly doesn't care.

She _can't_ care, in a way, because even having ignored that Tori is a Fallen Demon she still probably knows her better than she does any of the others, because they've been together as a couple for a while – something that their friends don't know only because they'd decided to keep it a secret until they felt ready to come out.

(Jade's always thought that they might, at least, suspect there's something going on. At most, she used to think, they might've picked up on the fact that they had growing feelings for one another.

But knowing what she does now, she wonders if their friends are really as clueless about their relationship as she's thought they are.)

Tori opens the door and allows Jade in before she also enters and closes the door behind her back. "They don't know for sure," she says softly, displaying her usual uncanny ability to know what she's thinking, "but I think they suspect something. I cannot blame them for it, though."

"You've been talking weird" Jade comments as she takes a seat on the bed. "Why's that?"

Tori blinks, looking for all the world like she hadn't taken notice of her own speech pattern. "Weird how, exactly?"

Jade shrugs. "It's... you have a bit of an accent, at times, and you get almost too formal. It's not like you've been doing it all the time, but you've slipped a few times there. I'm just curious."

The newly revealed Demon shrugs uneasily. "It's just... the way I'm used to speaking. You'd never pick up on someone being from Heaven just by the way they speak, since they're very close to Humans that way, but us... Demons are more... old-fashioned, in a way. It's not like we speak English like old high-class Brits, but we don't speak like the common American either. It's... in between, very formal, and since all of us live in Hell we have a distinctive accent too."

"But Beck, Trina and..."

"All of them were kicked out more than ten years ago, if you remember. I haven't even been here for half that time, so I just fall back on old habits sometimes. I make it a point to never do that anywhere near mortals or people that don't know about me, so..."

Slowly and carefully, Tori sits on her desk chair and stares at Jade as if fully expecting her to get up and run downstairs to the relative safety of the rest of the gang. It's not a look Jade is used to seeing on her girlfriend, and not one that's ever been directed at herself, so it's not even a minute until she sighs and stands up to walk closer.

She doesn't stop until Tori has to crane her neck up to look at her face, and even then she nudges her knees apart to step even closer – a position she takes advantage of by cradling her face to make sure she can't look away.

"You don't have to keep fearing I'll leave" she says softly. "This is a bit much to take all of a sudden, but I'm not going to run away from you, okay? I just need some time to adjust, but I _want_ you to be near while I get comfortable."

Tori releases a long sigh and finally allows her hands to gently grip Jade's hips, resting her forehead against her stomach briefly.

"I'm not sure you'll think the same if you ever learn of everything I've done" she murmurs. "But... I'll accept this, for now. I'll tell you, one day."

Jade bites the inside of her cheek to keep from arguing, well aware that her stubborn girlfriend isn't going to budge on this, and chooses to change the topic.

"What did you do that was so terrible to be kicked out at fifteen? Can I know that now?"

Tori chuckles and pulls away, looking up at her with loving brown eyes that suddenly look too _wrong_ on her face. Jade would almost prefer to see the bright red from before, if only because she now knows _those_ are her real eyes – even if just thinking about the red makes her a bit uncomfortable still.

The Demon smiles, a small but sincere thing that makes her almost look like her usual Miss Sunshine persona, and Jade makes a note to ask about _that_ too – later.

"It was because of you."

Brought out of her musings, Jade blinks. "You don't mean..."

Tori shakes her head. "I'd been kicked out already when I was invited to HA, remember? No, I was... one of many Demons commanded to kill you."

"Obviously you failed," Jade comments, ignoring the pounding in her chest at hearing that her girlfriend was supposed to _end her life_.

"I'm a prodigy in the arts of magic and assassination, Jade," she says seriously. "Andre, Robbie and Cat are good, but two years ago they were nowhere _near_ good enough to get in my way. I sneaked past them easily and entered your parents' house, making it all the way into your room, but when the right moment came... I couldn't do it. Next thing I know, Lucifer is judging me and kicking me out of the only home I'd ever known.

"Of course, I didn't realize until much later _why_ I couldn't complete my mission. It's a downside of being raised in Hell, you know? We're not too good with our emotions."

Jade smiles, catching the happy playful tone she's more used to. She leans down to connect their lips briefly, swallowing a chuckle when Tori's hands sneak a few centimeters to the back, and pulls back to lock her eyes with her girlfriend's.

Tired as she is, it doesn't take the Demon too long to convince her it'd be a good idea to lay down, and she falls asleep as soon as her head touches the pillow.


	2. Kind of perfect

_**July 23, 2012. California, USA.** _

When Jade wakes up the next morning, she's met with an empty room. Yawning, she decides that the prospect of possibly drinking some coffee soon is more appealing than staying alone for who knows how long, so she stands up and quickly freshens up before leaving the room.

Only Tori's mother is there, moving through the kitchen as she prepares breakfast, and the scene (knowing now that she's a Fallen Demon) makes Jade hesitate halfway down the stairs – she hovers for long moments, until the woman turns around and smiles at her, encouraging her to finally make her way down.

"Rough night?" Holly Vega asks when Jade almost throws herself onto the couch.

The teenager sighs. "You could say that."

The Demon's smile is sympathetic as she deposits a tray with breakfast on the coffee table and sits next to the half-blood. "It was too much to take in, wasn't it?"

Jade looks at her girlfriend's mother and deduces that she knows _exactly_ what happened the night before. She rolls her eyes as she returns her attention to the tray in order to pick up a plate of scrambled eggs.

"Right. Because you are _so_ open with the fact that you're supposed to be the bad guys here. Especially Tori."

"I see your point. It's still... hard for me to think of her as this emotionless and powerful Assassin, and I'm her mother."

"But you knew she's a Demon – you've probably known what everyone in the gang was from the very start."

"I did, but only because our kind can instinctively spot who in our surroundings is like us. You might develop a similar ability with time, now that you know about your origins."

Jade doesn't comment on that, managing a small smile (unsure on how to feel about the prospect of actually _showing_ signs that she's not human) before she returns to her breakfast, intent on eating something before there can be any serious talks. The other woman eats calmly, in silence, and Jade can't help but to realize that, really, nothing on Holly Vega points at her being anything other than a normal, _human_ , American woman – let alone a _Demon_.

They finish breakfast some fifteen minutes later, at which point Jade helps clean up before they return to the couch for what Jade _knows_ is going to be one of several serious talks she has to look forward to.

"So, what do you want to know?"

Jade frowns at the blunt question, a bit taken aback. "Is it okay if I ask you?" she asks, mildly concerned. "I mean, Tori..."

"She's the one who asked me to help you through what I can if you woke up before she comes back home, actually."

The half-blood blinks. "She's not here? Where did she go? And now that I notice, no one else is here either" she adds as an afterthought, because it really is _weird_ that they're the only ones in the house.

"David is at work, Trina at an audition and Tori went to Beck's for a meeting with the others about you."

She frowns. "What about me?"

"Well, considering how last night was so unlike the other times you've been attacked, it's very possible that Lucifer might've found out about the little guard you have, in which case he _will_ be furious and send increasingly more powerful Demons after you, in hopes that _someone_ will be either skilled enough or lucky enough to defeat Tori. He might also send more than one at a time in an attempt to overwhelm them.

"So, they have to discuss the possible change in threats and how they will protect you from them... though I don't think God will be even remotely happy with the idea of three Fallen Demons formally working alongside a trio of his Guardian Angels to protect one of Heaven's self-appointed charges. Until now, it was just a mutual understanding that neither Angels nor Fallens wanted any harm to come to you."

Jade looks at the floor in silence for a moment, trying to digest that honest answer – it's not easy, knowing now that her friends have spent _years_ risking their lives for hers and she's been nothing but cold at the best of times and an outright bitch at worst.

She decides to focus on the myriad of questions she has and discuss the past several years with her friends when they're back instead, and so blurts out the very first slightly not controversial question that comes to mind.

"Last night, Idvke Groumnhold was calling Tori some other name..."

"Rivot?" the older woman cuts in. "That's her... Demonic name, you could say – the name she was given by them when they took her from us. When a Demon is expelled from Hell they adopt a Human name to blend in, usually taken in some way from the letters of the name they're trying to leave behind. Tori's name was Rivot von Gieri."

"Rivot von Gieri?" Jade asks, tilting her head to the side in confused curiosity. "That's a... strange name. I'd never heard anything like it."

"I'd be surprised if you had. Both her name and last name are in Ancient, the language spoken back down in Hell."

"So Demons have their own language? And Angels just use Human languages?"

Holly shakes her head. "As far as I know, Angels speak Ancient too, though those that live here on Earth have it as a second language and depend more on whichever language is spoken where they live. They're... more open to interaction with Humans, especially the Guardian Angels.

"Demons, on the other hand... when they're outside of Hell, they speak the language of wherever they are only if it's strictly required for their mission, otherwise they stick to Ancient. That's a quirk of the language – it's the root of all Human dialects, so being fluent means you also know how to speak every other language."

"So you speak Ancient and basically every other language in the world?"

The woman shakes her head again. "Only Tori does, at this point. Most Fallens are so young when we're expelled that we eventually forget it almost completely, and with it our knowledge of other languages. Personally, though, I retained a certain ease to 'learn' languages, which is why I know five languages other than English."

"What about Tori?"

"She must still remember Ancient and know the other languages, but the only time I've heard her speak anything but English or Spanish was when we just found her – I don't know exactly _what_ she said, but her name was mixed in somewhere."

"And I would be grateful to never hear that name again" Tori's voice sounds from the doorway, prompting both women to turn around to look at her close the door behind her, looking far more normal than the night before. "I left that name behind when He expelled me. Now, it's merely a memory from a past I do not want to remember."

"Tori, you're doing it again" Holly says, almost a smile in her voice.

She blinks, as if having missed her slipping accent and mannerisms, but shrugs as she smiles lightly. "Sometimes it seems as if I haven't progressed a lot, doesn't it?"

"No, I think you have" Jade comments. "You didn't slip in front of me once until I already knew, and you can speak normally all the time. I don't think you should count as a failure that you relax with people who know the truth."

Holly nods in agreement, but doesn't add anything to Jade's words and changes the topic. "How did your meeting go?"

That seems to deflate Tori, and she sighs as she plops down on the couch at Jade's side. "The guys are... understandably nervous about Lucifer _actually_ getting angry with... well, with me. It was a bit difficult to even think with them freaking out so much, but I managed to make them sit down and talk."

"What did you decide?" Jade asks.

Her girlfriend frowns at her a little before looking back at her mom, even as she speaks to both of them. "We think that it's in everyone's best interest that Jade stays in a Sanctuary as much as possible, and if she leaves she should be with at least two of us – or one if it's either Andre or me, but still preferably more."

"What's a Sanctuary?" Jade asks, clinging to the first tidbit of information she's completely ignorant about.

Tori blinks at her. "I... I'm sorry, I forgot you know nothing about this."

Seeing that the important issue is covered, Holly excuses herself with a vague mention of going to work, leaving the house mere minutes later. The girls absently say goodbye, neither paying that much attention as they have a more pressing matter to discuss – especially Jade, who's more interested in her life ( _thank you very much_ ) and in the fact that it seems as if her friends' (especially her girlfriend's) main focus is in keeping her alive.

"Well, first you must know that, even with all the power that both God and Lucifer have, there are certain rules that limit them. One of those rules says that any place called home by a Fallen, be they Demon or Angel, has complete immunity against them – neither God nor Lucifer can even _enter_ a Sanctuary, let alone affect them."

"So even their... active members can't affect a Sanctuary, right?"

Tori smiles. "Yes. And they can't enter unless they have permission from every single Fallen that lives there."

"Oh. I'm staying here, then?"

She shifts, looking somewhat uncomfortable. "I mean, if you want. There's not a lot of Sanctuaries in California, you know, and if you want to stay in state the only options I'd trust you to would be here and the Oliver Sanctuary, but–"

"No, it's okay" Jade cuts her starting rant quickly, "I can stay here. But won't your parents mind?"

"Well, my mom didn't complain, did she?" Tori shrugs. "Honestly, I think the problem will be _your_ parents. We'll try and have you here as long as we can, and after that... we'll do shifts at your house, I guess, as we've been doing all along."

"I actually kind of feel bad that you have to go through all this trouble for me..."

"Hey, it's no problem" Tori smiles. "Even if your Guardian Angels are also doing their jobs, all of us are doing this because we want to."

"Yes, because you were supposed to kill me instead."

The Demon smiles happily, prompting her girlfriend to roll her eyes in silent mock exasperation. Sighing, Jade leans in and Tori meets her halfway, their lips connecting chastely for a few seconds before they pull away, look deeply into each other's eyes, and lean back in for a fairly more intense kiss.

As it is, it's more than a little obvious that someone will inevitably walk in on them, but they're too caught up in their happy little bubble to think that, with their luck, that someone will be their group of friends.

As _should_ have been expected, the door opens mere seconds later, which they don't realize until someone clears their throat. They pull apart quickly and turn around, startled, to see the other four members of their gang standing there – two of them looking excited, one sullen and one smug.

"I'd say you could've gone to your room and saved us from walking in on you, but now Andre owes me twenty bucks so good for you" Beck says, smirking.

"You two made a bet on whether we were together?" Jade asks, glaring at her ex-boyfriend.

He scoffs. "Well, duh. Andre was sure that you two were straight and he said that, even if you _weren't_ , you'd tell us if you started dating – I told him that, first, no way you two would be straight with the looks you give each other, and second, knowing you, it was more likely that we'd end up seeing you together before you actually got around to telling us."

In response, Jade picks up a cushion and throws it at his face with a scowl, while Tori only sighs and looks at the ceiling with a woe-is-me expression firmly plastered on. The others chuckle at the familiar byplay and make themselves at home, like they always do.

"So, what are you guys doing here?" Tori asks, pointedly ignoring her cousin.

Jade is so distracted by her accent disappearing completely that she almost misses Andre's answer, but his frown of pure worry is enough to keep her grounded.

"Cat needs to stay here for a while, too. Her brother was attacked right outside their house this morning while we were at Beck's."

Jade, understanding that the attackers must've been Demons or her friends wouldn't be reacting like this, quickly looks at her redheaded friend feeling the same worry as the others. "How is he?"

Cat shrugs sadly. "My parents had to take him back to Heaven for treatment – it was a close call, and it's unlikely he'll be fit for duty anytime soon. Since they're not around to keep the shields up and I'm not strong enough to maintain them on my own, my house isn't safe anymore so... we thought that maybe I could hang around until mom and dad come back, because it would draw attention if I stay at Beck's and we don't need Humans looking into our business more than they already do."

"That's okay, you can stay here as long as you need" Tori agrees easily. Then she frowns. "About the attack... do you know who was behind it?"

"Not really. Mom said that they were two, dressed in all black with maybe five inches of red runes sewn on the bottom of their cloaks, and both had very short hair with a bit more silver than black strands and their temples were red. Oh, also, they had black tattoos on their skin, and... and she swears she's only felt a darker aura once."

Cat gives Tori an apologetic look at the last bit, making it clear _whose_ aura that was, but the Fallen is pale and doesn't seem to register that look.

"Tori?" Jade asks, worried. When her girlfriend doesn't move, she cradles her face to make their eyes meet, and even has to slap her lightly to make her react. "Vega! What's wrong?"

"That... They probably were from the... the Assassin bai Kalaus" she manages to say, after taking a deep shuddering breath. "They are... the best Assassin clan in all Hell – the very definition of elite. Lucifer Himself gives them their missions, most of the time killing powerful Angels– anyone who's given trouble to other Assassins, really, and those Humans that He really, _really_ wants dead. Their motto talks about guarding Lucifer's honor and eliminating His enemies without mercy, with a smile in the face and joy in the soul."

All five of her friends stare at her, not knowing what to say at what sounds like first-hand experience, until Beck finally gathers enough courage to ask what everyone wants to know.

"Was that...?"

Tori smiles weakly. "Yeah, that was my clan." She hesitates for a moment. "Idvke was a Kalaus too, but... judging by his aspect, he was demoted – I wonder what did he do to be labelled an _Edhoerjae_..."

"A what?"

"That's not the point" Andre interrupts before Tori can even open her mouth to answer, frowning in thought. "Why did they attack Cat's brother? It just doesn't make sense."

Tori shakes her head. "It kinda does, actually. Callum Valentine is one of the best Guardian Angels of this era – you have no idea how many Assassins he's stopped from killing his charges. In fact, had he been one of Jade's Guardians he might've been able to stop me when I... well, you know. You have _no_ idea how many headaches he's given Lucifer."

Jade blinks at her girlfriend while everyone else looks mildly uncomfortable at the mention of the time Tori tried to kill her. "You're kidding, right?"

Seriously, Jade can't wrap her head around it. Just one Angel giving the Devil enough trouble to make him send his best warriors against him? It sounds ludicrous, and yet...

Tori purses her lips. "Well, _maybe_ they were aiming at Cat. It's strange for Assassins to misaim an attack, but not impossible. Maybe they knew your routine and were settled outside your house, pointing at the door to attack the second someone left the shields. Had this been a normal morning, you would've walked out of that door instead of your brother.

"... Of course, there's a reason the Kalaus are the elite, so I'm more inclined to think that Callum was the target all along, not Cat. He's certainly troublesome enough to warrant having a couple of Kalaus after his head."

"But if you're wrong, why would they target her?" Robbie asks, frowning.

Jade stares at him for a second, only now realizing that she hasn't seen him with Rex since that afternoon they all spent together before she took a plane to Florida without telling any of them. It's... strange, but not unwelcome – she hates the puppet, and now, knowing that Robbie is an Angel, she can't help but wonder if Rex _really_ has some level of sentience. Could that be possible with their powers?

"Well, she _is_ one of Jade's Guardians" Tori says matter-of-factly.

If she's being honest, it makes Jade feel a little sick that her friends might be targets of Demons because of her – she's seen what they can do, she was almost _killed_ by one of them, and just knowing that psychos like _him_ could try to hurt them too just to get to her...

It's worse because she knows there's nothing she can do to help them out here – she can't protect _herself_ , let alone any of them, and the less said about her chances of even hurting a supernatural professional killer the better.

She can, at least, follow their instructions as closely as possible. It's... a bit against what she almost instinctively does (she prefers to do what she wants, not follow after someone like a lost puppy), but she guesses she'll have to change more than a bit in order to increase her chances of _not_ being killed by some Demon.

The gang stays quiet, digesting Tori's almost off-hand comment (which they all _know_ to be true – especially Cat, because Jade's the only assignment she's ever had and she's been her protector for almost as long as she can remember).

Then, suddenly, Tori leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, looking as if she's trying to gather herself enough in order to say something. Her friends, instead of pressing her (which they know to be less than helpful), wait until she's ready to voice what she's thinking.

A few minutes later, she runs her hand through her hair and looks up with a frown.

"I don't like this. If, by some _miracle_ , the attack on Callum was actually supposed to hit Cat... then all of you are in danger, even if the attackers were not Kalaus. But if they _were_ , and I'm almost certain that that's the case, then..."

She trails off, unable to finish the thought, but Beck clearly isn't feeling patient enough to wait around for her, because he explodes fairly quickly. "Then what? What would it mean, Tori?"

She frowns, staring at the palms of her open hands for a moment before she clenches them. "It'd mean that Lucifer is growing impatient – which is a really, _really_ bad thing for us. These past several years he's been sending Assassins almost as a formality, but... look, guys, he sent _me_. Even if I was only fifteen, there's a _reason_ I'm the youngest Kalaus there's ever been, and no matter what those who hated me would like to claim it was not because of my name or connections or anything other than my loyalty and my talent."

All of them seem confused at what her name or 'connections' would have to do with anything, but before anyone can even open their mouth to ask she's continuing her rant.

"Not to give myself airs, but I was an _incredibly_ dangerous Assassin– I've killed _Archangels_ without getting any injury worse than a few scratches, which is not something many Demons can claim to have done. And I was sent after Jade _alone_. The other Kalaus are incredibly powerful and dangerous too, and if He sent more than one of them after Cat..."

"Then," Jade continues, her voice surprisingly calm even if internally she's close to panicking, "that would mean he's trying harder than ever to kill me. It could probably even be his main focus, right?"

She inhales and closes her eyes. "Yes, that's what it would mean. As far as I know, He's rarely sent two Kalaus to kill just one target that's been anything less than a very powerful Archangel, regardless of who they are – He's more likely to have had them killed before they could be too much of a threat or an annoyance. Junst, my mentor when I was first inducted into the clan, always taught me that the Kalaus were the ultimate weapon, the one He used when He either had no better option to fulfill His goals or wanted to make sure a delicate goal was obtained.

"Even so, he insisted that we were so good that He rarely needed to use more than one Kalaus to complete a task that would require whole clans – and he was right. When we're not at war with Heaven, He hardly ever sends more than one Kalaus on a single mission even when the target is an _Archangel_ – and I know of only one event in the last three hundred years. All eleven members were sent, true, but they were against a dozen Archangels so it doesn't count.

"Two Kalaus could reasonably be sent after a powerful and troublesome Guardian, but to order them to kill a Guarded or a no-name Guardian? Impossible. The Kalaus are too overqualified for a mission so painfully _simple_."

"I didn't know some Demons thought that highly of themselves" Andre comments, sounding a bit bemused and just a touch insulted.

Tori directs him a deathly glare that shows how much she appreciates his observation. "It's not an exaggeration, Andre. The Kalaus really are _that_ good – you can ask your people if you don't believe me. I'm not the only one who could've killed any of you without you even realizing there was an Assassin nearby until it was too late.

"But that's not the point. The _point_ is, if things are progressing as I hope they're not and the Kalaus were sent after Cat, we may be close to a situation where not even our combined efforts will be enough to protect Jade. She'd have to stay inside a Sanctuary all the time in order for her to be safe and sound, and we all know that's not possible – not if any of us, especially Jade, wish to continue a halfway normal human life."

"And what about Father?" Andre asks, finally sounding worried at the scene Tori's painting. "We could–"

"You could, but that won't happen" Tori interrupts him. "You guys are working with Demons – worse, with a former Kalaus who probably gave him the mother of headaches while still loyal to Lucifer. As long as I am one of her protectors, God will refuse to even consider to give the three of you any further help. And the only reason why I'd take a step to the side would be Jade being in ultimate danger and God's direct protection being the only way for her to stay alive."

"Which she's not right now," Beck says, "and maybe never, if we manage to keep her here."

Andre shakes his head. "But we can't. No matter her blood, she's still living as a Human, and they just don't stay 24/7 in a house that's not their own – not without attracting attention that we've already said we don't want. She'll be here for the next week, but what later?"

None of the protectors can answer that, and all five of them stay silent, staring anywhere but at the rest, while Jade shifts her eyes from one to the other. The three Angels seem deep in thought, Beck looks worried and Tori has a completely blank expression that frankly makes Jade nervous.

A good fifteen minutes of silence later, Tori lets out a weird little sound and her friends immediately look at her conflicted form as she opens and closes her mouth once and again until she finally breathes deeply and sits straight.

"I... may have an idea. You won't like it" she adds, looking at Jade. Her girlfriend frowns and motions for her to keep going. "If the issue with you being here or at least with one of us all the time is that you're still living with your parents, then..."

"Then I should leave" Jade cuts her off. "But you know my parents, they'd never just let me leave – unless _they_ were the ones to kick me out in the first place."

Tori looks ashamed at her suggestion. "Look, I know that you don't like it, but it's the best thing I can think of right now. It's just an idea, though. You don't have to go through with it if you don't want to."

Jade frowns. "Are _they_ targets? When you went after me, were you supposed to get any of them too?"

The Fallen Demon flinches at the blunt question. "Not really" she answers hesitantly. "The assignment ordered for a priority in making it seem as if you'd... passed away in your sleep, avoiding any confrontation with your Guardians if at all possible and leaving your parents alive, but there was an _ishva_ at the end – that's a symbol that sort of indicates that we– that Assassins have permission to work out of the mission parameters if judged necessary.

"I used to never take an _ishva_ unless I was getting too close to the time limit given for my mission, so I wasn't _actually_ a threat to them seeing as I got past your Guardians so easily" she adds pensively, before shooting an apologetic look at said Guardians. "Still, I had access to the files on missions related to you and your family while I was preparing, and I remember just five missions that involved them directly – four were during the last month of pregnancy, after Lucifer realized a Lost Angel was carrying a Lost Demon's child, with three attempted assassinations on your mother and one on both your parents. The last one was an attempt on all three of you a week or so after you'd been born. Every time that risked them after _that_ was only as... allowed collateral."

Jade pales dramatically, fearing that she knows which incident her girlfriend's talking about. "A week? That's..."

Tori winces. "Yeah. The attempts on their lives stopped after your mother was... rendered infertile after a failed assassination. I guess there was no need to try and kill an interracial couple when they couldn't..."

As she trails off, the room falls into an odd sort of awkwardness that only could be brought about by this kind of news.

"And I was the focus from then on" Jade concludes, trying not to think too deeply on what exactly Tori's words imply. "Because I was the one child they managed to produce before that incident."

She clears her throat. "Well, yes. I actually sort of skipped over _your_ files, since I was a bit too arrogant to think they'd be of much help to me, so I don't have a lot of detail about that."

"Back to the issue at hand" Andre interrupts.

Jade shakes her head. "Yeah, let's just..." she sighs. "Well, if I'm the target and they're just... allowed collateral damage... I may not have the best relationship with them, but that still doesn't mean I want them dead, so I better move out before something happens to them."

"Okay, so, if you can't just leave without them breaking down the door to drag you back, how are you going to get yourself kicked out?" Beck asks.

Jade and Tori exchange a look, one frowning and the other unexpressive, before realization dawns on both their faces.

"No" Tori immediately says. "Jade, that's– you won't ever be able to go back or even restore your relationship with them if you do that!"

"If the other option is dying for something they have no idea about, I'd rather they stay alive and hate me for something that's true anyways" Jade retorts darkly. "I appreciate that you're trying to protect me, but this time it's my choice to make. It's the best option we have, you know that – _especially_ if we want to explain _why_ I'd move here after leaving my parents' house when no one knows we even get along, let alone are together."

"What are you guys talking about?" Andre asks, confused and frustrated.

The Fallen Demon grimaces while her girlfriend crosses her arms stubbornly. "Jade thinks that she could come out to her parents and tell them she's dating me."

"It'd work" Jade argues. "You can't deny that."

"I'm not denying anything" Tori bites back. "We both know they're unrepentant homophobes to begin with, so they'd throw you out just knowing you like girls. But why should you tell them you're with me? That'd completely ruin any possibility of a reconciliation in the future!"

Jade huffs. "I don't have any intention of breaking up with you, so they'd disown me eventually anyway when they inevitably learn of our relationship."

"It was _your_ idea we hold off on telling them to begin with, because you didn't want that to happen!"

"Why would they even disown Jade for dating you in particular?" Beck interrupts them before Jade can express just how little she cares about her parents disowning her right now.

"Yeah, I would've thought they'd love you at first sight, Tori. You tend to have that effect on parents" Andre adds, confused, which elicits a small bitter laugh from the girl.

"Not going to happen. The base of a Demon's brain has a gland that reacts when in presence of an _Imnathoerjae_ , producing hormones that cause dislike. I'm a... a _Zkhoerjae_ , so I trigger outright loathing."

"I didn't understand that" Cat confesses, blinking.

"Isn't that what Groumhold called you? _Zkhoerjae_?" Beck asks.

Tori winces. "Please don't say that word."

"But what _are_ they?"

"Well, the _Imnathoerjae_ are the Lawbreakers, criminals of all kinds. The others are... they're the Oathbreakers, the Fallen Demons. Calling someone an _Imnathoerjae_ is an insult, just as the words for all kinds of Lawbreakers, but _that_ one is so offensive that it's automatically punishable with time in prison – the only thing under discussion being which prison and the time you'll serve. Really I shouldn't have felt insulted when Idvke called me that, since it's true and I'm not loyal to Lucifer anymore, but..."

Tori trails off uncertainly and shrugs, looking at her clasped hands.

"Anyway," she continues, clearing her throat, "Jade's father is a Lost so he doesn't understand why he hates me, it's just instinctive for him. The less said about her mother the better."

Jade purses her lips and looks away, easily remembering how her father looked at Tori with disdain and loathing the first time they met, when her now girlfriend helped her put her play together, and the glare full of then-unexplainable hate Tori was subjected to courtesy of Jade's mother.

The fact that Jade still didn't even like Tori at the time made everything more confusing, but she has to admit it was part of the reason why she didn't want to tell her parents about their relationship. She wouldn't have minded her parents dying at the hands of someone trying to kill her instead either.

Now, however? Knowing that the hate-at-first-sight thing was at least partially brought about by biology means she really dislikes them, but wouldn't want them to die if she can do something like moving in with her girlfriend to prevent it.

(It's not like she wasn't secretly hoping that their relationship would eventually evolve to them living together, anyway.)

"At least we know that telling them about us would work" Jade comments, steering the discussion back to topic.

Tori shakes her head slowly. "Jade..."

"It's my decision, Tori."

"Okay, we can discuss the exact method later" Andre interrupts. "If anything it can be a last resort, if we haven't come up with anything better before she's forced to go back there. Remember, we don't need her to completely destroy her family, just leave her parents' place and move into some Sanctuary."

"Fine, we'll argue about this when it's actually important" Jade rolls her eyes. "And we already said I'm staying here, so nothing about 'some' Sanctuary."

Tori exhales a drawn out sigh, shakes her head and smiles a little, between timid and sad. "I'm sorry, babe. I wish I could protect you better."

Jade grips her hand tightly. "You guys saved my life last night, and who knows how many times before that. If you've managed to keep me alive so far, I'd say you lot are doing a fine job keeping me alive, Vega."

The others agree, which makes Tori relax a bit as she regains a bit of confidence from her friends' support. It's... a bit reassuring to see an already familiar behavior in this completely _un_ familiar situation.

There's a long moment of comfortable silence, everyone ruminating over the recent discussion, and it's not until almost eight minutes later that Robbie brings up a new topic.

"Ok, so, now that we agree on that... we still need to figure out how we'll protect Jade when she needs to be out of the Sanctuary."

"Don't you mess with me" Tori immediately jumps in, her whole being radiating supreme indignation. "I'm doing it. There's no question about it and you know that."

"Tori, chill" Cat tries to soothe the Demon's ruffled feathers. "We're still her Guardians, remember? We have to do something or we'll also be in trouble with our higher ups."

She huffs, her hand tightening its hold on Jade's just enough for her to feel it but nowhere near enough for it to be uncomfortable. "Fine, then. You can back me up if I need help and look after her so I can focus on the fight. Happy? It's not as if we haven't been doing it like that all along," she adds in a slightly resentful mutter.

Jade slowly raises an eyebrow at her girlfriend and looks at their friends. "And _I'm_ the jerk here?"

The other four shrug carelessly, as if none of them can be bothered to actually have an opinion on the matter. Jade guesses it's because they're more used to Tori showing her Demonic side than she is.

Andre frowns lightly. "But she's kinda right. She's the strongest of us, powerful enough that she could beat all of us easily while still keeping anyone under her protection from being harmed. So, yeah, maybe it's best if she's the main force against any attacker and we're there to cover her back – also, to keep an eye on Jade whenever Tori needs to rest or something like that."

Seeing as all of them agree that Tori is the strongest immortal of their group, far surpassing her family and the three Guardians, it doesn't take long for everyone to agree on that. Tori noticeably relaxes when the discussion is settled, and is the first to agree when Beck suggests pizza for lunch.

They spend the rest of the day just hanging around, watching TV and playing cards and generally ignoring anything related to immortals. As is usual for them, they barely acknowledge Tori's parents when they come back and both are quick to retreat upstairs (after making sure they have money to order dinner later), and when Trina stomps her way in and up to her room they just deliberately ignore her mutterings.

They order Chinese for dinner and eat contentedly, with an air of normalcy surrounding them – it's not the first time they've spent the whole day at Tori's place, even if they don't do it often when the summer heat makes places like the beach more tempting spots to laze around.

It certainly won't be the last.

It's not even ten when Andre, Beck and Robbie decide to leave, all six of them tired from that morning's discussions (Tori in particular started to look downright dead around thirty minutes before), and the girls move upstairs.

There's a tacit understanding that they'll all change in Tori's room before deciding who takes the single bed at the guest room and who'll share her large bed (though both Jade and Cat are already determined on the couple sharing and the Guardian taking the single), so they move there and Tori quietly provides pajamas for the duo before shuffling off to one side.

Cat is the first to turn her back to the rest of the room to change, and when she takes her shirt off Jade can't help but to notice something definitely strange between her shoulder blades, right above her bra – something she's never seen before, despite the fact that she's known Cat for most of their lives and has certainly seen her uncovered back more times than she can count.

"What's that?"

The young Guardian Angel looks back over her shoulder, glancing down to follow Jade's pointed look. She blinks and shrugs carelessly, draping her hair over the opposite shoulder to allow her an unimpeded view of the tattoo-like golden design.

"Oh, these are my wing marks – I can't go through Human life with those attached to my back, you know? Normally I pray to hide them when I need to have my back uncovered in front of people who don't know about me, so..."

She jerks her shoulders back in one swift motion, and the tattoos emit a soft golden light for a second before a pair of feathered wings, each one reaching from slightly above her head down to her ankles, grow from the tattoos.

Jade is mesmerized at their appearance, even though the wings are almost blindingly white. It takes Cat retracting the wings for her to come back from her thoughts, and she shakes herself out of the lingering amazement before turning to her girlfriend, who's somehow already changed into her pajamas.

"Do you have marks like those too?" she asks.

The Fallen Demon shuffles uncomfortably on her feet, looking away. "I– Kinda, yeah."

"Tori doesn't like her marks" Cat confides quietly, also refusing to look at her as she brushes away invisible wrinkles on the borrowed shirt. She hesitates for a moment before picking up the shorts and her own discarded clothing before walking out of the room, quietly closing the door behind her – as if knowing that this is a discussion that her friends need to have, preferably in private, before they can move forward with their relationship.

Tori's eyes trail after Cat and, once she knows they're alone, return quickly to the floor between her feet. "Tartarus... isn't a place I like to remember" she says in a low voice. "I never release the magic that covers them. I... I don't like to see the physical reminders that my past left on my body."

Understanding dawns on Jade. "That's why you didn't want us to get too physically intimate. You're ashamed..."

Tori shrugs. "Not of _every_ tattoo – just, almost all of them. A situation like that would distract me and there's a chance I'd let go of the magic... I don't like the idea of you seeing them, Jade, not even now that you know about me."

The half-blood looks at her in sad silence for a second before she walks up to her, lightly grabbing her face to tilt it up. Her eyes study the fake-brown pair, easily catching the fear of rejection deeply rooted there, the fear of Jade walking away from her as soon as she sees the marks left on her body by a life in Hell.

Tori shifts and tries to look away, but Jade doesn't allow it and leans in to kiss her.

"You know I wouldn't leave you for a bunch of tattoos."

The younger girl closes her eyes, fisting her hands by her sides. "Yeah," she manages to say, "but the marks aren't what bother me, it's what they _represent_. Every stroke of ink, every beat of magic that burnt it into my skin, they all confess the truth about me – how many people I killed, how many families I destroyed, how blindly I followed orders... how dark my soul truly is. I... I don't want you to see the proof of all the wrong I've done. I know it's selfish of me, but..."

Jade sighs. "Please stop that, Tori. What you did was wrong, true, but you were raised to not question it – you didn't know another life. I'm guessing that's the reason why Fallens are rare, isn't it? Because they don't know anything else."

Tori opens her eyes and sighs, her expression dark. "I lost count of how many Humans I killed a little after my seventh birthday" she confesses in a soft voice, and it takes all Jade has in her not to reel back. "By the time I was ten, I'd lost count of the immortals. I was thirteen when I was inducted into the Kalaus clan, something that no one before me had accomplished before turning twenty-five. I'm not... I'm not the kind of person that deserves anyone's affections."

Jade frowns, wondering how she'd missed that profound self-loathing, especially with it so painfully _evident_ now. She'd like to believe it's just that she didn't know about Angels and Demons, that Tori got too used to donning a perfect Miss Sunshine mask, that she hasn't been anything less than completely aware of everything about her girlfriend since she first realized she had feelings for her, but it's hard.

It's almost impossible, because this is not the kind of hate that springs up in a second, but rather an all-encompassing emotion that festers in the soul for a long, long time – possibly more time than she's known Tori for.

When did this hate begin? Was it something that started to brew when she was expelled from the only home she'd ever known and faced with the reality that life could be better? Or was it something else, something older, the root of a deeply hidden voice in her mind that made her hesitate when she was ready to kill the very girl she'd later call her girlfriend, the girl who'd fall in love with her?

Her frown deepens as she stumbles upon that line of thought, and she thinks...

Has she ever said the words to Tori? Other than offhand comments directed more to things she does and the way she styles herself, has she ever told Tori that her feelings for her go more deeply than a simple crush?

She sighs at that and bumps their foreheads together, because the answer is simple – she can't remember.

Tori hasn't said the words to her, either, but now that she knows how much her girlfriend hates herself it's easy to imagine her holding back, determined not to show how she truly feels for fear that it won't matter once the truth came to the surface.

"I can't care about that, Tori, not right now" she confesses. "I might want to know something about your past, eventually, but right now the only thing I know is that you're kind to me and everyone around you, even when everyone else would expect you not to be. The only thing I _care_ about right now is that you're beautiful, and talented, and kind, and that I hope you love me as much as I love you."

Tori's eyes widen at the confession. "Jade..."

"Please don't keep doing this to yourself, Tori. You're not that person anymore, and you haven't been since long before I met you. You're not... you're not _evil_ anymore, which I know because my Guardians wouldn't let you anywhere near me without putting up one hell of a fight if you still were."

Her eyes flicker between the brown she's always known and their natural red as she studies Jade's gaze and judges the truth displayed there, still seemingly unwilling to just accept her words.

That's... not okay, but acceptable. Jade will just have to convince her over time, softly and patiently, just as she convinced her that she wasn't kidding when she asked her out.

Finally, after a long, moment, Tori's eyes settle on red, and when Jade doesn't react to the brightly inhuman color she exhales an "I love you".

Jade smiles, a little confused because she hadn't _actually_ been expecting a confession – not right now, not when the other girl was obviously feeling the brunt of her insecurities and self-hate at the moment.

"I just... I love you" Tori continues, closing her eyes as she hugs Jade's waist. "I... I wish I could be good enough for you, but I'm not, and I'm selfish enough to want you by my side for as long as you'll have me."

Jade sighs and moves her arms to return the embrace, tucking her girlfriend's face to the crook of her neck and lightly pressing her lips to her temple, knowing that Tori feels most comfortable when they snuggle in this position whenever they have a bit of private time.

They stay like that for a while, just holding each other close and savoring the other's warmth, until Tori shifts and moves her head away to lock their eyes together – Demonic red hesitant and regretful, Holy-influenced blue soft and certain, but both full of love and a passion that's been there for too long but neither had allowed to grow.

But now, with the last walls that stood between them gone, they can finally, truly see and understand the depth of emotion they hold for each other.

And just like that, as one, they release the tight grip with which they've held back for so long, and they hope, they know...

Things might not be okay, and they still will have to eventually sit down and have that uncomfortable conversation neither wants to face, but right now?

Right now, this feels kind of perfect.


	3. Marks of hate

**_July 24, 2012. California, USA_ **

Jade wakes up thanks to a solitary ray of sunshine reaching past the curtains to tease her eyes, something she can't manage to get away from before it's just bothersome enough that she has to open her eyelids.

Instantly, the slight annoyance felt by the sun dissipates, replaced by a mix of overwhelming feelings that threaten to swallow her as she gazes at her girlfriend's sleeping face, resting on the pillow just inches away from her.

Tori's right arm circles around Jade's naked waist, somehow lovingly tight even in sleep, and their legs are intertwined in a way that before (when she was with Beck) made her supremely uncomfortable but now (with Tori) feels natural.

Jade is almost unsurprised to see that her girlfriend's body is still covered with the deep black tattoos that Tori had almost spat on, ashamed of the meaning behind them. She saw them for the first time last night, when they were looking at each other laying on this very bed and Jade leant in to kiss her and the passion they'd been repressing for so long finally burst out of their control.

Tori had hesitated, panting as she looked down at an equally flustered Jade, both of them semi-naked with only their underwear giving any semblance of cover, but she'd finally closed her brown eyes and scrunched her eyebrows in something that looked like concentration and defeat – and when she looked at Jade again, eyes an inhuman red, her skin had rippled and shimmered, the illusion dispelled to show marks that had been hidden for who knows how long.

Memories bubble to the forefront of Jade's mind, and she recalls the insecurity in Tori's eyes, her disbelief and happiness when Jade flipped them over and began to trace those tattoos with her lips and fingers. She can almost still taste the feel of Tori's skin, her tremors when she caressed some of the tattoos and her sighs when lips brushed against previously hidden scars.

Even knowing what the tattoos mean, Jade can't help but to find them strangely fitting – because they are proof of her girlfriend's past, of the life that made her into the person she fell in love with.

She can't say that she doesn't completely mind, that she's comfortable with them, but she doesn't _dislike_ the marks. Even when they're invading her skin and it feels as it shouldn't be as smooth as it is, they don't disgust her the way Tori expected them to.

(Part of that, Jade knows, has to do with the fact that Tori isn't the same person that committed those unspeakable acts of evil. _That_ was Rivot von Gieri, an unrepentantly cold Demon who killed at the command of the Devil and never would've been caught _dead_ singing on a stage to raise funds for orphans.

 _This_ , the girl sleeping next to her, is Victoria Vega, a kind and welcoming Fallen Demon who regrets every breath she took during the first fifteen years of her life and would never kill a fly, never mind a person, if not in defense of those she loves.

Rivot and Tori are one, but they're not the same, and Jade thinks that there's an important difference, there.)

Jade lightly caresses her girlfriend's right arm, fingers tracing the tattoos from wrist to elbow to shoulder and down her neck until they reach her chest. Tori tightens her grip as she brushes lower, and her eyes (almost the exact same shade of red as Idvke Groumnhold, and yet completely different) flutter open just seconds after Jade's touch stops its path on the underside of her breast.

"Hey" the Fallen Demon greets groggily, shuffling closer to nuzzle Jade's nose with her own.

The older girl half-smiles. "Hey. Slept well?"

"Like you have no idea" Tori breathes. She hesitates for a moment, clearly unsure if she should explain herself (if she _wants_ to, to begin with), before she continues. "I... I haven't released the illusion covering my skin for over fifteen months, not even to sleep. It's just... it's weird. I'd forgotten how well it was possible to sleep."

"You should do it more often, then," Jade comments.

Tori frowns. "I'm not sure..."

"I thought we were beyond the point where you felt the need to be ashamed of your body?"

She sighs and relaxes. "Sorry. It just seems strange that seeing me like this, seeing the marks from my past, you still want to be with me – and it's even more unbelievable that you're actually _encouraging_ me to stop hiding them as much as I'm used to."

"Well, can you blame me?" Jade asks.

Tori chuckles throatily at the playful tone, clearly remembering Jade's attraction to tattoos (particularly on Tori) – something they discovered just the previous night due to the increasing attention she paid to the pitch black designs, making it one of the few things they're most unlikely to ever forget about their first time together.

"Does your family also hide their tattoos?" she asks after a long moment of silent contemplation of each other.

Tori blinks, probably surprised at Jade's interest on Demons – an interest that, oddly, surpasses that which she feels towards the race that _isn't_ trying to kill her.

(In Jade's defense, the girl she's in love with isn't an Angel – she's in love with a Demon, and if things go like she hopes they will she's going to be around a family of Demons for the rest of her life. It's only natural that she wants to know more about them.)

"Well, not exactly. We're born with our wing marks, so they have those, but only Demons in the class system earn more tattoos. There's the Master-Apprentice mark, which they wouldn't have because teachers tend to disinherit their Fallen students and that makes the mark fade away with time.

"Other than that, it depends on the class. Assassins, for example, earn marks for completed missions. My dad, Trina, Beck and his mom were assigned as Assassins too, but since none of them completed even their first mission they don't have anything other than their wing marks now."

Jade hears what's not being said – that Assassins are tattooed as a sort of reward for successfully killing a target. Just seeing how heavily inked her girlfriend's skin is, it's easy to deduce that she was not only _really_ good at her job, but also a rather... prolific killer.

It's a bit unsettling to once again hear that Tori had already reached that stage by the time she was fifteen, but she doesn't comment on it.

"My mom and Beck's dad were Puppeteers – the class supposed to guide Humans to do things that could be harmful to others, like, I don't know, selling drugs or killing or even getting behind a wheel when they're blind drunk. They can't work when there's no potential, though, so they're only _partly_ responsible for this world being worth shit. Also, there are more than enough Humans who don't need any prompting to do those things, so it's not entirely _our_ fault." She blinks. "No offense."

Jade shrugs carelessly. She'd be the first to admit that there's more than some fucked up shit in the world, so she doesn't really care about the comment.

... Besides, it's not as if she's human anyway, even if she spent her whole life thus far believing herself to be one. She can't be offended by a comment disparaging the human race's general character.

"Just out of curiosity, Assassins are the ones responsible for weird deaths? Like the cold cases?"

Tori shakes her head.

"Not necessarily. Assassins are behind a lot of deaths, true, but not only those that appear as murders – accidents, natural deaths, suicides, illnesses... the only limit to what scenario we– _they_ can set up is their abilities.

"For the obvious murders, resolved or not, Assassins take credit for several, but there's also two other options – cases where the murderer was simply a Human, with or without influence from a Puppeteer, and cases where it _was_ an Assassin and everything was manipulated by the Handlers to make it _seem_ as if it'd been a Human."

Jade frowns. "So some people found guilty for murder are actually innocent?"

"Yeah."

"That's..."

"Disgusting, I know. But too many unresolved deaths create things like the monsters from legend and characters like Jack the Ripper." She shrugs at Jade's surprise. "Some stupid Assassin got excited and started killing just because she wanted to. As far as I know, Lucifer was so pissed off He extended her life _just_ to still have her in the Abyss –that's the second highest level prison of Hell– being tortured for creating yet _another_ unnecessary legend... as if we didn't have enough of those."

Jade blinks, but decides to let that go. "So, what did your mom and Beck's dad _not_ do to be kicked out?"

"I'm not sure, no one ever really talks about Tartarus around here. But I _think_ uncle Dave had to nudge some guy to shoot an elementary school."

Jade tries (and fails) to suppress a shudder. "Is there _any_ Human doing those things by themselves or is there always a Demon involved?"

Tori grimaces. "To be completely honest, Demons are guilty of a lot, but... the evil in this world isn't entirely on us – that's some idea that God and his Angels gave Humans to make them think they _weren't_ a really fucked up race."

"That's a bit unfair. I thought that God of all... beings would be more honest about that kind of thing."

The Demon shrugs. "Well, he's God, the ultimate enemy of Lucifer. Don't expect him to be fair to anything even remotely related to Him – I know I don't."

"That's why you are so sure that he won't send any more Angels to help protect me, right? Because your family and Beck's are Demons..."

"It's even worse" Tori interrupts. "I was a Kalaus, remember? I'm not anywhere near proud of the number of Angels, Humans and even Demons who met death by my hand, but... I _was_ powerful, arrogant and proud when I was still down there, and I had more than enough reason to be. So long as you're around us, and particularly me, Heaven won't give you more protection."

Jade sighs. "I'm not sure I can like Heaven if they, the supposed good guys, can get so caught up in prejudice."

Tori shrugs and rolls on her back. "Well, much as I dislike saying anything remotely in their favor, it's not only Heaven – Demons have our own fair share of prejudices too... which admittedly is part of the reason why it took me so long to be halfway comfortable here. Angels are generally self-righteous bastards, though, so I'm sure I wouldn't like them even if I _wasn't_ a Demon. At least we _admit_ we're assholes."

Jade chuckles darkly and leans on her elbows to hover above her girlfriend. "I can appreciate that honesty, but you don't seem all that bad to me."

The corner of the Demon's lips twitch in response. "Well, that just goes to show that you don't know how I was before" she says, before sobering up. "If you did, you'd know that in some aspects I was worse."

"Oh, really?" Jade asks. Tori hums lightly in response. "Like what aspects, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, as I said, I'm really powerful and very confident in my own strength. And, well, quite frankly, we tend to be attracted to two things above all – power and acknowledgement of our power. So really, it's no surprise that strong Demons tend to... ah, sleep around."

Jade raises an eyebrow at her girlfriend's wince. She can't fault the younger girl for that, as she's been known to be rather jealous even of her current partner's past lovers (it's one of the reasons she and Beck didn't work out) – but she can't even begin to get jealous, too busy trying to wrap her head around the fact that she even _managed_ to have multiple partners.

"But you were fifteen when you were kicked out."

Tori grimaces. "I told you I was worse. Demons mature faster than Humans to begin with, but Assassins... And we don't have any age restrictions, so I was attracting _a lot_ of attention since I was twelve or so – not that I accepted anyone until I was nearly fourteen, but still.

"A strong Demon can easily crush a weaker lover's will – it's almost _expected_ of us– of them to do so. That kind of power is... addicting at best," she muses in a low voice, twining her fingers with Jade's in an obvious avoidance of her girlfriend's face. "I had that power. I was strong, young, physically attractive and extremely arrogant – so, obviously, a lot of Demons of all classes were attracted to me." She shrugs weakly. "I don't know how many, but I only had two 'regular' partners and otherwise rarely repeated a choice.

"Powerful Demons tend to pick a few regulars and take someone new only when they _want_ to make them regulars or are looking to take another," she continues after a moment of silently contemplating her own words, "but, the way things are back there, my behavior was seen as nothing but completely acceptable from a Demon of my age, power and status. That kind of implicit recognition of my strength... it got to my head and fueled a vicious circle."

Jade can only blink in confusion, totally bemused by the fact that her girlfriend has had a lot more experience (and partners, but she doesn't want to go there) than she has – admittedly, Jade's only had sex with Beck before, but considering that she used to think that Tori was a virgin...

"And you began to change... when?" she asks, more hoping than assuming that it happened.

Her girlfriend grimaces. "That would be when I came to Earth. I admit it wasn't really voluntary, at first – between having to hide my tattoos from Humans, being fifteen at the time and lacking the usual thrill of the power play that comes with sex between Demons, I didn't really have any options for the kind of partner I was used to. Besides, my parents, Trina and the gang kind of kept a close eye on me, since no one really trusted me, so I wouldn't have had any freedom to look around had I wanted to."

"Did it ever become voluntary?"

"Yeah." Tori purses her lips and looks up at her briefly before glancing away again. "By the time I was in a position where I could've gotten something at least somewhat similar, I realized I was in love with you. I've only slept with someone once after that and... well, I didn't enjoy it as much as I used to, so I decided to not do it again. It got complicated when we started to date, because I _wanted_ to, with you, but I couldn't without exposing the truth – and we'd agreed not to tell you until graduation at the soonest."

"So you _were_ going to tell me about... all this?" Jade asks expectantly.

Tori shrugs, looking uneasy.

"In theory, maybe. The guys say that it's sort of an unwritten rule that the Guarded aren't told about the supernatural at all if their Guardians can help it, and before you and Beck got together they hadn't contemplated ever telling you. A week or so before I started at Sherwood they agreed that they wouldn't tell you unless your relationship got more serious, then around half a year ago they realized it'd be harder to keep you safe once we didn't have school and they resigned themselves to telling you sometime after we graduated regardless of your relationship with Beck – which was fortunate for you, because that would also be around the time you broke up.

"As for me, I just went along with them, at first, because I really didn't care one way or the other. After I started to care, my reason for keeping quiet was that it wasn't my place to tell your Guardians how to do their jobs – even if I _had_ almost left them without one.

"When we got together..." she hesitates and looks to the side, away from Jade's expectant look, thus missing the light frown that appears on her girlfriend's face. "Well, my reasons were more selfish. I didn't imagine that you'd still want to be with me after you knew, because the guys _were_ going to tell you eventually, so I was still debating between breaking up with you and moving as far away as Earth would let me _before_ they did, or making the most of any time we'd get together until you found out and inevitably dumped me because you hated what I was and what I'd done."

"Then Idvke caught me and it didn't matter anymore" Jade continues, not wanting to hear what option was sounding more attractive to her girlfriend until that night.

Tori grimaces. "Yeah. We'd already discussed the possibility of something like this happening, that you'd find out when someone tried to kill you _again_ and you saw us fight them off, but we couldn't agree on what we were going to do."

"What did _you_ think?"

"That if we didn't manage to keep things a secret and you found out in one of the worst ways possible, then there was no reason why we shouldn't come clean. I... was fully prepared for you to dump me as soon as you gathered yourself again."

Jade sighs. "We really need to work on your low expectations. You do know I love you, right? I'm not going to leave you."

"Jade..."

"Not now, Tori. Tell me someday if you want, but only when you're ready and when you trust that I'll stay with you."

The Fallen Demon looks up at her girlfriend's face, searching carefully for any hint of hesitation, the slightest sign that what she says could not be true, but she only sees fierce determination and a glint that only now she's accepting that might be love.

She smiles and nods.

That's something she doesn't mind hoping for.

–o–

The couple wanders downstairs almost half an hour later, after showering and dressing for a lazy day at home (neither feels too much like leaving the house, even if it hadn't been unsafe to do so), and find both Cat and Trina already lounging on the couch, watching some boring drama repeats, while Beck flutters around the kitchen – not surprising, since out of the five of them Jade is the only one who wouldn't burn anything she tried to cook, which doesn't necessarily mean the results would be edible.

"Hey there!" Trina greets them cheerfully. "Had fun last night?"

They stop almost at the bottom of the stairs, both equally confused, until Jade's eyes narrow at the expression on the trio's faces.

"What."

Tori's voice is flat and almost tired, in that it's-too-early-for-this-crap tone she takes sometimes when someone (most often the gang) is being particularly annoying, and Jade feels a rush of affection that would be unexplainable if she didn't know herself so deeply in love with her girlfriend.

Trina smiles innocently – then she opens her mouth. "Please, a blind idiot could tell something happened between you two."

"Also, Beck went to your room when he got here a couple hours ago and decided to let you sleep" Cat pipes in.

Jade closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. She doesn't need to ask to know what exactly he saw when he opened that door, and it's not as if she's ashamed of what she does with her girlfriend but she _really_ wishes he hadn't – the fact that Beck is both Tori's cousin and Jade's ex makes it all kinds of awkward.

"What are you even doing here this early, Beckett?" she asks instead.

"I was _trying_ to let you both know that Andre and Robbie are dropping by after lunch. They're freaking out now that they processed the level of the threat and want to go over a few thousand contingencies for every possible situation. It's ridiculous, really – the house could be surrounded by every Assassin alive and as long as you kept within the walls you'd be perfectly safe."

"Well, we're her Guardians," Cat says, not sounding very convinced about her own argument, "it's kind of our job to be overprotective. Not to be mean, but there's no way a trio of Demons could understand."

None of the three cousins takes offense, and Tori shrugs as she plops down on the couch and tugs Jade down with her.

"Of course we wouldn't understand – me especially. The closest to protective a Demon gets is with the young, and then it's mostly about magical and physical wellbeing. Unless we're training, then all bets are off."

"Damn, all this cheery talk is making me hungry" Beck interrupts, gently dropping a loaded tray on the coffee table. "Now, why don't we break a better subject? Like, I don't know, how long have you two been together and when exactly were you planning on telling us?"

"Aw, did it take you by surprise?" Trina mocks him.

"Didn't it surprise _you_?"

"Of course not. Well, maybe just a little bit – I did know she was dating someone, with how long she was spending out of the house, and I thought it could be Jade with how often she was dropping by alone. Not to mention that Tori's had a crush on her since like forever."

"Please, it's not like we were being obvious" Tori complains. "I _could_ have been seeing someone else, you know, and Jade coming over might've been just us becoming closer friends."

Trina gives her a completely flat Look the likes of which all elder siblings everywhere have perfected, and Tori fidgets under the stare for a moment until she grudgingly admits to the last part of her sister's words.

"Officially, it's been three months today. Unofficially," Jade pauses, frowning in thought, "three and a half?"

"Four" Tori automatically corrects. "It was a few days after that parade that Sikowitz made us help him with."

"Four" Jade agrees. Then she frowns. "How _did_ you even get those thugs to help us out?"

Tori shrugs lightly. "I'd met one of them before, in Tartarus. We weren't friends, but we got along well enough. He convinced his guys to help out and hung back when I told him I was with several other immortals."

Trina frowns. "There are more Fallen Demons around?"

"Not anymore. They didn't have Sanctuaries," she explains at the confused looks sent her way, slowly chewing on a piece of toast, "so they were easy prey. Naelis, the guy that helped us, died a few months ago – Jharis, the other Fallen in the area, said an old enemy found them by chance and decided Naelis would be a good first kill for his Apprentice before the kid was taken up by a clan."

"And what about this other guy?" the older Vega sister asks, her face clearly showing she's not really comfortable with her younger sister being in contact with Demons of questionable morals.

"He freaked out and fled south. Jharis didn't exactly have a good relationship with Janlei either and didn't want to stick around after what happened to Naelis. I don't blame him – Janlei has always been a sick son of a–"

"And if he came after you?" Jade interrupts.

Tori looks at her, face serious and harsh and unforgiving and confident, and it strikes Jade that she's never seen such an expression on her girlfriend before.

When she speaks, her voice holds the very same emotion, and (even hadn't they known of her past, of what she's done, what she's capable of doing _again_ if only to protect herself and those she cares about) no one feels capable of feeling the tiniest bit of doubt.

"Oh, I hope he does."

That's all it takes for Jade to know that there's some serious bad blood between the two. She wonders if it would be enough for Tori to forget everything she's been trying so hard to become.


	4. Memories of class

**_July 25 through August 29, 2012. California, USA_ **

A month passes by in nearly complete silence.

Jade manages to get permission from her dad to stay "at a friend's" for the remainder of the holidays, in no small part because he isn't set to return to Los Angeles until mid-September and thus doesn't care – of course, she still has to omit the fact that she is staying with the Vegas, since his indifference wouldn't survive the revelation. Everyone chooses to ignore _why_ he allowed her to not stay at the West household, being instead supremely glad that she can even stay at the Sanctuary without having issues with her parents.

With things being calmer than they'd been for the weeks leading up to Idvke Groumnhold's attack on Jade, the gang can afford to go out from time to time in order to keep up the human charade, but always to places where they feel confident protecting her.

(Which isn't saying a lot, not after Tori points out that there's a _reason_ some "natural" deaths were in fact caused by Assassins. It's difficult to protect from that sort of attack, but it's doable, and they are lucky enough that Tori scoffs at the idea of being incapable of blocking those.

And if Tori being the only one of their group who can currently block sneak attacks also means that Jade has to be close to her every time they leave the Sanctuary, well, that's just a happy coincidence – one that they're trying to get rid of, what with Tori teaching the others how to do it.)

Everyone is taken aback the first time Tori starts to show some of her tattoos, particularly a set around her upper left arm, a simpler one around her right wrist and an almost minimalist mark on the inside of her left wrist. Even though they feel uncomfortable the first few days of seeing those every time they look at their friend, they grudgingly admit that they _do_ look good.

Part of it, Jade knows, is because humans don't seem to dislike the designs, and those who do appear to feel that way do so because they dislike the concept of tattoos in general. That only the people who know Tori's a Demon would know what the marks actually are helps, too.

Eventually, they get used to it, and no one even thinks of calling attention to them or asking Tori what any of them means.

Cat stays in the Vega Sanctuary even after her parents return from Heaven, a still not-completely-recovered Callum in tow, and the Vegas just shrug and go along with it – none of them even cares that she doesn't seem to be leaving anytime soon. She's given the guest room across the hall from Tori's room, where Jade stays with her girlfriend, and everyone acts as if she's been living there all along.

(The fact that she can't use her powers inside the house helps, as an untrained half-blood living there is _very_ different from housing a professional Guardian. Cat being effectively rendered powerless helps them forget that she could most likely kill all of them –except from Tori, but then again she's always an exception– effortlessly.)

Everyone is on edge the day when Callum Valentine returns from Heaven and presents himself in the Sanctuary after a call for help from his sister, enough that the three older Vegas excuse themselves – Cat doesn't make them nervous, but her brother? That's another story entirely. They don't know him like they know Cat, and they don't trust the older Guardian at all.

(Not when they've spent their entire lives on Earth being monitored carefully and distrustfully by Guardians and Archangels alike, often looked down on because they're Demons despite the fact that they were all kicked out from Tartarus.

That's something that Jade learns the first time she goes out with just Trina and Tori and they encounter a Guardian Angel doing some tourism with her Guarded and she sneers at them and obviously moves her unaware companion as far from them as she can, glaring until the Fallen sisters feel uncomfortable enough to leave.

Jade can't believe she never noticed, but Trina just shrugs and mutters that they get used to it when she asks, and tries to defend that the Holy aren't quite as obviously rude too often. Cat denies it strongly, seeming offended on her friends' behalf, and Trina looks away when the other Guardians join in.

If Trina goes out of her way to be nicer to the trio after that episode, well, that's just a coincidence.)

Callum himself doesn't seem too bothered about the fact that he's sitting in a Demon household across from a very powerful Fallen, though it's obvious that he knows who exactly she is (was), and he's actually very eager to explain what little he remembers of the attack.

Tori is quiet while he recounts that morning, expression becoming more somber by the second until he stops talking and she declares, in a voice that reflects the same emotion as her face, that she does in fact know the attackers. They were just two, but that's enough to make her worry seeing as they'd been in the same clan together before she was kicked out of Hell and neither seems to have been demoted.

"Kramlov van Groumn and Aarash Gieri" she announces darkly. "Aarash specializes in traps, especially those activated by immortal auras, and Kramlov follows a millenary tradition of magical poisons undetectable by mortal means. They had the same Master a decade apart and worked together when they were in low and middle rank clans. Kramlov in particular has killed entire households without seeming to lift a finger – if you're alive, that probably means Aarash's calculations were made on the scenario of Cat being the target and left no room for mistakes. Foolish of her, but then again she's always relied too much in her traps."

Callum nods, entirely unworried about his own welfare and more concerned about the fact that his baby sister was targeted by two Kalaus, and offers his help were anything to happen. Tori is reluctant but accepts after sizing him up.

Partnership established, Callum hands over his phone number and a second, emergency-only way to contact him and sees himself out after fussing over Cat for a minute or ten.

She's exasperated, they can see it, but also deeply touched and grateful that her brother is willing to work with her Demon friends – that he doesn't demand she stop hanging out with them, now that he knows Jade isn't the only of her friends with a Demonic heritage, now that he knows she's hanging out daily with one of the most prolific teen Assassins that Tartarus has ever produced.

It's a good day, all things considered, even if Tori seems a little bit more on edge after knowing who exactly tried to kill Cat.

Things don't go nearly as well when Andre asks for an audience with God in which he intends to ask for help, nearly two weeks after they talk to Callum.

While the Demons (especially Tori) are indeed completely unsurprised that their race's greatest enemy doesn't even bother to receive the strongest Guardian of their little group, all three Angels are more than a little shaken up – enough that none of them talks about it, pretending instead that they never tried to approach the Holy Father they look up to so much.

"They're trying to digest the fact that God flatly refuses to consider the idea of any Demon, even a Fallen, being... not good, necessarily, but at least not _completely_ evil" Tori confides a few days before they start school again, when Jade finally decides to ask her girlfriend.

"Why?" the half-blood asks, making as if she doesn't notice Tori ogling her from the bed as she changes into her pajama shirt. "Because God's supposed to be this all understanding and compassionate and forgiving being and all that?"

Tori shrugs, showing that she doesn't really care. "Kind of, I guess. They were raised a bit like kids from really Catholic families, you know, that 'God loves everyone and forgives everyone and Lucifer is the source of all bad things in the world' kind of speech. Befriending Beck and Trina was one thing and befriending me pushed the line, but it will take a lot of work for them to accept that I wasn't kidding when I said God actually hates Lucifer and every one of His Demons, no matter their status or deeds."

"But he's protecting me," Jade points out, "and my dad's a Lost Demon."

"But your mom's a Lost _Angel_ " Tori retorts. "No matter what your father is, you have the kind of blood that God values the most. Plus, they just love to oppose every single step the other takes."

"Oh? So if Lucifer suddenly wanted to recruit me, God would try to have me killed?"

Tori's lips twitch in an amused smile. "Well, aside from the fact that recruiting you would declare you officially as a Demon and Lucifer would declare his eternal loyalty to God before accepting even a quarter-Human in Tartarus, Heaven's Law doesn't allow God to order someone killed unless they attack a Holy first under certain circumstances.

"Still, even in the impossible scenario of Lucifer accepting a half-Angel in Tartarus, He would never give God the chance of killing you if He even suspected he wanted to – He'd probably send you to one of the classes that stay down there."

Jade snaps her fingers, startling her girlfriend. "I _knew_ I was forgetting something. I've wanted to know about the classes since you mentioned them but I never got around to it, what with the guys being around all the time."

She doesn't have to say that their friends are supremely uncomfortable talking about anything related to Tartarus – it's the reason Tori only mentions something about her former home when it's strictly needed.

"What do you want to know?" the Fallen asks, looking distinctly amused as Jade sits straddling her, resting her hands on smooth thighs she's traced innumerable times by now.

Jade places her own hands atop her girlfriend's and rolls her eyes. "Everything you'll tell me. I'm more interested in _your_ class, of course."

Tori's lips twitch in something like pleased surprise, delighted as she always is whenever Jade somehow shows she's mostly okay with Tori's past – or at least trying to be.

"Well, we're divided in four spheres –primordial, first, second and third– and then there's the outcasts. When we're born, anyone at least moderately strong is sorted into one of the classes of the first sphere and the mediocre and weak are sent to a third-sphere class – classes tend to run in a bloodline, since our magic generally has the same characteristics as our ancestors'.

"Assassins are the top class of the first sphere, and only us– _they_ can be eligible for the primordial or second spheres. Their job is to kill and, in case of war, they're the soldiers that fight against Heaven.

"The other first-sphere classes are Puppeteers, Muses and Handlers, and their jobs are to manipulate, inspire and cover up respectively. They're mostly seen as the Assassins' sidekicks, which... isn't far off the truth, actually.

"The primordial sphere can only have thirteen members at most, divided in three classes, but for decades there's only been the six of the second class. The second sphere has all the classes that keep the peace and protects Tartarus in one way or another – Praetors guard the frontiers of Tartarus, Enforcers are basically a military police, Quaestors judge any crime short of treason, Prefects are a more common police, and Custodians are the jailors.

"Then there's the third sphere, which is more of a mishmash – the two upper classes are actually retired Demons from other spheres, and the other four are administration and production workers sent there because they were too weak to make it in the first sphere."

"Back up a little – there's a _police_?"

"Well, yeah. _Someone_ has to enforce the law, right?"

"There are laws _other_ than 'don't betray the Devil'?"

Tori rolls her eyes. "Of course there are, what do you think they are, barbarians? There's actually a really long Code ruling the lives of Demons, I swear it's longer than all American laws together – and I mean America as in the _continent_ , not just this country. Even Lucifer has to stick to that Code."

"Ah, so that's why you're such a Goody-Two-Shoes. I was wondering" Jade mocks, receiving a small, startled laugh from her girlfriend.

"That'd explain it, yeah" she says, red eyes twinkling warmly. "Demons also police each other's behaviors and the punishments can be very harsh, so going against the rules is _really_ hard after you've lived there."

"And the worst punishment is being kicked out?"

"At the moment you're expelled, yes. But there are others – torture is common, and the lucky ones are executed in short time. The worst punishments are actually given to the Traitors, not to people like me."

Jade vaguely remembers Tori being very disturbed about the word that reflects her exact criminal status, so she doesn't ask what she means about people like her – she can easily guess she means the Oathbreakers.

"And those punishments would be..."

Tori's expression becomes somber, more so than when she heard Callum Valentine describe his attackers. She hesitates.

"That's... something really, _really_ delicate. No Demon wants to talk about it, see, because being labeled a Traitor means that the Quaestors judge you've become undeserving of Lucifer's trust – mostly by killing or seriously injuring a fellow Demon outside of training, but there's also the chance of..." she shudders visibly.

"Tori?"

"People like me, the Demons who acted against Lucifer or helped God, we're judged by Him and mostly labeled like I was, but sometimes they're labeled as... as High Traitors. Those who're labeled like me don't really have it bad, at most we're executed after being expelled, and sure Traitors are given corporal punishments, but the others..."

Jade hesitates, not sure if she should really voice the question brewing in her mind, because Tori seems absolutely terrified at the mere mention of High Treason, and it's worse than her reaction to Oathbreakers – she'd been uncomfortable and disgusted by that word, personally offended even, but there hadn't been an ounce of fear.

This... this is fear, panic, a primal terror that runs deep enough to paralyze even the bravest being. She wants to know what could cause such a reaction from her girlfriend and yet, at the same time, she can't bear the thought of making her girlfriend voice that fear.

Tori, however, speaks before she can decide whether or not she should ask.

"It's disgusting," she says softly, "even for professional murderers and torturers like us. And it's painful, too, a pain even worse than having holy power coursing through your veins. I've been told that even the most sadistic Enforcers feel sick the first several years they have to apply it."

There's a long pause as Tori seems to lose herself in her memories, and before Jade can change the topic she voices the punishment that terrifies her so much.

"High Traitors are sent to Gehenna," the Demon explains in a whisper, "our worst prison, the nightmare not even the rowdiest children are threatened with to behave, the true Hell humans speak about in their religions, the only place in the entire world where time has no meaning, where screams are little more than background music. If I had my whole life to do it I wouldn't come close to describing the horrors of that place.

"Demons are tortured there. Day and night, with barely any breaks, for however long their sentence was decided to last, until their time has been served and they've compensated Him for their betrayal, and only then they're granted the mercy of death. The tortures used by humanity in medieval times are barely more than a papercut compared to what's been happening daily in Gehenna for thousands of years.

"But the worst thing..." she hesitates, looking scared and pale, and Jade grips her girlfriend's hands tightly in an effort to ground her just a little bit. "The worst thing is the _jhavdya_ , the slow and painful destruction of a Demon's wings until they've been completely ripped off, only for them to be healed and the torture to start over and over and over again."

Despite Jade not having wings of her own, some part of her instinctively _knows_ how terrible that must feel and recoils at the echo of a genetic fear of threatened pain, sickened at the idea of someone voluntarily inflicting that kind of torture and terrified by the knowledge that she doesn't have the promise of the _jhavdya_ hanging over her head if she steps out of line only because her mother isn't a Demon.

"That sounds..." Jade trails off, not knowing how to sum up everything that's wrong with that in one word.

Tori grimaces, as if knowing what's going through her mind. "Yeah. I saw the Enforcers throwing out the corpse of a condemned once, just a few weeks before I was expelled, and it was enough to give _me_ nightmares. I'm really, really, _really_ glad that I'm as far away from Gehenna as a Demon can get – and impossibly happy that I was expelled instead of sent there."

"Not that I'm complaining, but why _weren't_ you sent to Gehenna if what you did was so bad?"

Tori sighs, beginning to lightly brush her thumbs against naked thighs and studiously avoiding Jade's gaze. "That's because I didn't actually _do_ anything against Him, not until I'd been here for almost a year and a half – but He keeps a close eye on the Kalaus, since they're His best Assassins, and He knew there was something wrong the moment I hesitated. I was retrieved by Enforcers so quickly I didn't even have _time_ to understand why I hadn't killed you yet, let alone to think of betraying Him."

"Would you have?" Jade asks, treading her fingers through dark brown locks until Tori looks at her, then leaning in to kiss her lightly.

The Demon smiles, sadly, and tightens her grip. "To be brutally honest? Had I been in your room for one more minute, I probably would've completed my mission."

She raises her left hand and brushes Jade's cheekbone with her thumb, before moving lower to rest it next to her lips. Her gaze is adoring and regretful, shining with love for Jade and disgust for herself, deep red warm and sad.

"But it doesn't matter, now, not since He judged I was guilty of breaking my oaths and banished me. I won't go back to Tartarus, I wouldn't even if He personally gave me the chance, so it's irrelevant."

She pauses.

"The only thing I worry about now, other than you, my family and our friends, is that maybe my punishment wasn't only the expulsion, that one day an Assassin will be sent after me to execute me, or worse, drag me to Gehenna."

"Tori–"

"It happens" the Demon interrupts. "I've been given missions like that in the past, and it was always in situations like mine."

Jade frowns. "What do you mean?"

Tori sighs and leans forward to nuzzle Jade's neck, turning a little to press a light kiss against pale skin and smiling faintly when her girlfriend's pulse quickens.

"I was the leader of a middle-rank clan," she murmurs, "and one of my subordinates... he fell in love with his target's Guardian. He warned her that her Guarded was in the kill list, and she upped the defenses so much that a high-ranking Assassin had to be called to break them. Lucifer was so angry that he ordered my clan to set up an ambush with him as bait, capture the Angel, torture and kill her and deliver him to Gehenna..."

"Where he will be subjected to the _jhavdya_ until Lucifer thinks he's paid for his treason" Jade finishes, shaking her head and sighing as she curls the fingers of her right hand on the hair at the nape of Tori's neck. She presses a kiss to her girlfriend's temple. "Is that why you didn't want us to be together even after you believed me when I said I liked you?" she asks softly.

Tori takes her time to answer, breath steady against Jade's neck and fingers tracing patterns on her skin. "Part of the reason, I guess" she says finally. "I never understood _why_ he'd betrayed our King, why he'd thrown a decent career to the trash for an _Angel_ , a natural enemy of our people. Why would he give up his life to help God? It just... it didn't make sense."

"Past tense?"

Tori huffs. "Little bit. It still doesn't make sense, but I kind of understand why he'd surrender his life – he was in love, after all, which is... really strange for us Assassins, but then again he came from a Handler line. What I _don't_ understand is why he did that while he was still Lucifer's subject. He must've known he was risking _her_ life, too."

The Demon sighs deeply as her hands begin to wander, and she kisses Jade's neck slowly. "Still, my situation is a bit similar to his, so I can't really judge. Except that I'm unlikely to be making your situation any worse."

A part of Jade realizes that, in light of that event, it really makes a lot of sense that Tori was so unsettled the first few times Jade confessed, before she believed Jade was truthful, and why she never seemed to completely relax the first few weeks (before Tori asked her to be her girlfriend) unless they were in the Sanctuary. Not only she would've believed she was unworthy of Jade feeling affection for her (she wouldn't have dared imagine there could've been love, though Jade's pretty sure she was at least a little bit in love with Tori before she even broke up with Beck), but she would've been _very_ scared of her past catching up with her and getting Jade killed – probably more than she maybe was about a too strong Assassin coming around with Jade as their target like she was Tori's, only that the new enemy wouldn't hesitate to kill her.

She can't imagine living with that fear, but her girlfriend endured it silently for months and still lives with it bubbling quietly in the back of her mind, and that, for her, is just another proof that no matter how evil Tori thinks she is she's loving and protective and regretful.

She'll just have to keep trying to make her see that.

In the meantime...

"On another cheery topic," she begins, "what about that... primordial sphere you mentioned? You didn't say what they did."

Tori pulls back and rests her back against the cushions, gently bringing Jade with her until the half-blood rests her forearms on the pillow to the sides of her face. She bites her lip when she feels the reason for that change of position, as Tori's hands brush lower down her back.

"That's three categories – the Paladin, six Knights and six Esquires. All originally Assassins, all former Kalaus, all extremely powerful. For some reason, though, there's been only Knights since our last war against Heaven, centuries ago.

"All things considered, the highest rank is Knighthood, but the chances of becoming one are so slim that no one really thinks about it, so the most ambitious Assassins barely aim to become Praetors. The Knights also the only ones, other than the Paladin, who can see Him face to face without needing Him to give express permission."

"So you didn't actually see him when you were expelled?"

"Of course not, I was only a Kalaus. I don't even think He was paying all that much attention to me, though it gave me the impression that half the Knights wanted to kill me right there."

"What _exactly_ do they do?"

"Well, apparently the Esquires are supposed to be apprentices to the Knights, successors to their seats if you will, but the others?" Tori shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine. No one really knows what do Knights do, and Paladins are almost a myth since the death of Paladin Iekann von Gieri in 1283."

"And hasn't anyone thought to just ask one of them?" Jade asks, part of her thinking that maybe most Demons are just downright dumb.

"Well, it's not as if we can talk to them" she protests. "They're mostly always in the Palace and almost every time they leave it means trouble to someone – and no one wants to get in the way of a Knight."

Jade studies her girlfriend's face and smiles a little. "You wanted to be one of them," she states, doesn't ask, because there's _something_ in Tori's whole demeanor that makes her think that, if she had a life goal before coming to Earth, it was rising to the highest rank of Assassins.

Tori lets out a startled laugh. "That obvious?" she asks, a tiny smile pulling at the corner of her lips. Jade nods, playing with the ends of Tori's hair. "Yeah, it was my life goal. I... I was six years and a half when I decided I wanted to be a Knight. It wasn't so much about the status, back then."

"What was it about?"

The Demon sighs, caressing her lower back.

"My mentor was expelled," she begins, "and I... I had to cut all contact with someone I cared deeply about, someone who cared about me more than he cared about anything or anyone else, because he was a Knight and wouldn't have been allowed to be in contact with the student of a Fallen. I made it my goal to become a Knight so that I would see him again before he died – he was the last I had left, and I the last he had, and I saw him little enough already. I'd be able to spend more time with him if I was a Knight, I thought."

Tori takes a shaky breath and drops her hands, tapping Jade's knees absentmindedly.

"It was stupid, really" she continues. "There wasn't much of a chance that I'd get that far, not with the stigma of my mentor's status hanging over me, but... it was a nice dream, a lofty and dignified goal for a lonely six-year-old Assassin who only knew how to kill on command."

Jade's heart breaks a little at the vulnerability buried beneath all the confidence and carefully leashed violence she'd gotten used to on Tori, the shadow of a tiny girl who most likely couldn't even admit to herself that she felt lonely, that she wanted something more than the life traced in front of her.

She wonders if that's the root of the hesitation that saw Tori expelled.

"Who was that Knight to you?" she asks, brushing Tori's hair away from her face and lightly caressing her forehead.

Tori furrows her eyebrows. "I'm... not entirely sure. He was important, that much I know, and he was... a role model, an idol almost. I don't even remember his name anymore."

"Because you were too young?"

"No, that can't be it. I still remember the name of most of the other kids at the orphanage, and I left that place the day before I turned four."

"... Orphanage?"

Tori blinks. "Huh?"

"Nothing, it's just... You've never told me you lived at an orphanage" Jade comments, as she lays her body flush against her girlfriend's for a much needed cuddle.

The Demon looks down at their intertwined hands. "Well, both my parents were Fallens. I guess I just didn't have any other relatives to take care of me, or maybe nobody wanted to."

"... Do you want to talk about it?"

"About the orphanage?" Jade nods and Tori smiles faintly. "It wasn't bad, if that's what you want to know. We value the young far too much to mistreat even a bunch of kids without any blood kin. My orphanage's Grandparents, that's the Demons in charge of the children, always treated us as if we were their actual descent, and all of us would've considered the others siblings if we'd had any concept of that."

She stays silent for a long moment, playing with Jade's fingers, and kisses her softly on the lips before continuing.

"I lived at the Paladin Iekann von Gieri Home, in the Northern Mountains. It's... sort of an elite orphanage, mostly kids from Assassin bloodlines and noble lineages. Large, cozy, maybe twenty-five kids tops at any given time with maybe seven caretakers, everyone has their own room and there's enough left over for playrooms and things like that. The area is cold half the year and downright freezing the other half, but you wouldn't know it from inside the perimeter. We could even play outside sometimes, when the weather wasn't too bad.

"It's a good place," she continues after a pause, "filled with good people, too – well, as much as former and future Assassins can be, anyway. It made us feel like we belonged, like we weren't forgotten by those who had living kin. They taught us the basic skills that kin teaches their children, like how to read and write, the history of our people, how to properly pronounce Ancient so that our spells were effective, they made us memorize and practice the handseals and taught us exercises to keep out hands from cramping if we had to cast a lot of magic, and they helped us learn how to access our magic and how to call our wings. It's... in no small part thanks to the Grandparents there that I was deemed ready to start my apprenticeship before I even turned four."

"And the people?" Jade asks, because nice as that sounds she doesn't think she can get a picture until she knows how the other Demons of that orphanage were (both young and old).

Tori smiles –actually smiles!– at that question. "They were great. Never treated anyone differently because of their name, and the older kids were great with the younger ones. The elder of us at the time I left, Raikai van Groumn, treated me as an equal from the moment he realized I wasn't quite like other kids my age. He wasn't surprised when they learnt that I succeeded in calling my wings."

"You miss him" Jade states, looking up at her girlfriend's face.

The Demon blinks at that, seemingly surprised. "I... sort of? He would've been one of my best friends, I think, if Assassins understood the concept of friendship. We were..."

She purses her lips and looks away, briefly, and then back at Jade, who frowns a little in confusion.

"He was... my more regular partner" she says slowly. "Our... arrangement was actually set to us eventually bonding, but I was expelled."

"Bonding. That's like marriage?" Jade questions, not entirely sure if she should feel jealous – Tori speaks of this Raikai with almost-fondness, and knowing that they were intimate frequently doesn't sit completely well with her, never mind the fact that she _knows_ Tori is in love with her.

Still, by her own admission Tori wasn't good with emotions before she left Tartarus, so there's a chance of her having loved the guy but being unable to put a word to it, and _that's_ what bothers her a little.

At least she knows she was never in love with Beck, just liked him a lot, but Tori?

Her girlfriend just shakes her head. "Not exactly. Assassins tend to be polygamous, remember? All classes of Demons see bonding differently, but for our kind it's just the ceremony performed between two Assassins who will have descent together. In those circles it's seen badly if a child is born from a non-bonded couple, _especially_ if at least one of the parents is bonded to someone else – the kid isn't looked at any differently, of course, since it's not their fault, but the parents get backlash for it.

"Still, that doesn't mean that a bonded Assassin can't have other partners, just that they can't have kids with them. It'd make it difficult to follow family lines if Assassins could just have children with anyone."

"And... you were engaged to this Raikai guy when you were fifteen?" Jade manages to ask in a neutral voice.

Tori fidgets a little. "Promised, actually, and that would be when I was fourteen and he almost sixteen. It's fairly common for Assassins to end up promised at that age, you know."

"Fine, promised, then. Were you going to tell me?"

Tori huffs. "It's not as if he was my _boyfriend_ , Jade, just a guy I spent a lot of time with. I didn't tell you about Raikai because there was nothing to say."

Jade sighs and just lets it go, knowing that they might well end up fighting over something incredibly stupid if she keeps it up – and it's not as if Tori doesn't have a point.

Besides, a sort-of friend with benefits isn't quite that important if she's ever going to see him again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts:
> 
> 1\. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was both a primordial deity and a place of the underworld, probably the deepest, where the Titans and other characters are imprisoned. Christian analysis interpret that the Greek would've heard of the punishments for fallen angels, and Tartarus would be their answer.
> 
> 2\. In Hebrew tradition, Gehenna was a valley where kings of Judah allegedly sacrificed their children by fire. Later, in Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, it was considered the afterlife of the wicked.


	5. Return of darkness

_**August 30 through December 08, 2012. California, USA** _

Almost five months after Jade learns of her heritage, things are so completely calm that her protectors are close to having collective nervous breakdowns.

Jade doesn't understand their worry (not being attacked has to be good, right?) until Cat tells her, in a rare alone moment when Tori's out with her sister and cousin, that Demons have been popping up to have a try at her head at least once a month since she was born.

It's the reason she was assigned a Guardian before she was born, and why she was later assigned a second Guardian in five-year-old Cat, then a third in Robbie at age twelve, and finally (after her first Guardian died of old age) Andre when they were thirteen. It's already rare for a Human to have one Guardian solely dedicated to them (most Guardians "share" areas and everyone living within), Robbie comments, so a half-Demon having three says _a lot_ about how hard is Lucifer trying to kill her and how dedicated is Heaven to keep her alive.

There's been a Demon constantly lurking around Jade for years, and all of them (except the Fallens, who, really, don't count) have always gotten close enough to attempt to kill her before being stopped – or at least _tried_ to get close enough.

One day after high school, Andre explains that the only time Jade's Guardians didn't stop someone after her life was when Tori (Rivot, at the time) attacked her, and no one could ever understand _why_ she didn't kill anyone that night – at least, they didn't understand until they actually met and Tori bluntly told them that she hadn't killed their Guarded just because she'd been pulled from her assignment before she could.

Predictably, her forwardness and indifference didn't help the Guardians trust her – they didn't until after several months of acquaintance, he admits, although having a common ground in Beck at least made them not be completely tense every time they were in the same area and stopped any confrontations.

(That night, Jade asks Tori if Andre's claims are true, and she grudgingly admits that she's killed a few attackers that the others haven't detected. Neither says anything to the others, both feeling that there's really no reason to worry them or hit their confidence.

Besides, Tori says, chance is they would've detected the attackers before they made a move anyways – she just found them first.)

The _point_ is, Robbie interrupts before Andre can further expound on that tangent, that having so many Assassins constantly attacking, then Cat herself being targeted, and then the attacks stopping suddenly... it doesn't look good, and it gives the impression that Lucifer is planning a bigger move than usual.

Tori grumbles at that, as she's _far_ more than pretty sure of the King of Tartarus' intentions and that makes her freak out a little, but she lets it go.

Still, Jade doesn't understand _why_ Lucifer would try so hard to kill _one_ teenager who's never shown the tiniest bit of immortal power in eighteen years of life. When she asks, the Guardians and the older Fallens all shrug and admit they have no clue, and Tori avoids the topic in a way that says she _might_ have some idea, but doesn't want to share.

It's in early October that Jade's living situation is finally (and messily) resolved, in a way that no one had predicted and leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouth – even Jade, whose initial idea had been more or less in line, but more... controlled.

As Jade had to go back to her parents' house when her father returned to LA in September, the gang had been taking turns to watch over the place when Jade was inside, and often at least one of them went inside under one excuse or the other – almost every time related to school, as that was the one reason they all _knew_ wouldn't be contested.

(Just because Jade's parents don't approve of her schooling or future career choices doesn't mean they're going to allow her to do any less than perfectly.)

On the day in question, both Tori and Cat enter the house, without any excuse needed since Jade's parents aren't expected home until late at night, and hang out for a while until Cat excuses herself to meet with her brother (who's been training her more thoroughly since he came back and found out that the attack that had him out of commission was actually probably intended for Cat), leaving the couple alone.

Almost predictably, as it happens often when they're alone, they end up heavily making out on Jade's bed, neither really knowing when Tori's shirt disappears or how exactly does Jade's bra suffer the same fate.

In a moment of extreme bad luck they hadn't experienced since the trip to Yerba, just as Tori is popping open the button of Jade's jeans and the half-blood's hands grip her girlfriend's ass to pull her closer, Tori kisses her way down Jade's breasts and the older teen moans her girlfriend's name right when the door is pushed open.

Jade's mother (of course, who else was it going to be other than the extremely homophobic Lost Angel, who hates Tori enough without knowing that she's not straight or that's she's involved with her only daughter?) starts screaming as soon as her mind processes the fact that, yes, Jade is all but having sex under her parents' roof, and yes, she's in bed with another girl.

The couple scramble apart, covering their chests with pillows, and Jade barks at her mother asking why the hell she acts so disturbed if she's never cared about her at all and Tori stays back, quietly staring with a look of what-the-fuck.

Soon enough, the woman whirls around and starts to insult Tori, who simply sneers and (in a fit of temper she's never before shown) declares she doesn't understand why the fuck is Jade still living there when her mother is _clearly_ an uncaring, bigoted bitch and Jade not only already turned eighteen but also has several people who would happily take her in, in a way that says, duh, _of course_ she's top of the list.

Jade laughs (partly surprised, because she hadn't expected Tori to drop her persona, partly amused, because finally someone's calling the woman out on her crap, partly annoyed, because she would've loved to be the one to do that, and partly turned on, because _damn_ her girlfriend is hot when she's pissed off), and her breath hitches a little when Tori's fingers brush a weak spot on her side – in a move clearly calculated to further provoke the shocked silent woman.

It works, of course, as Tori's plans somehow always do, and Jade's mother explodes and demands they both get the hell out of her house and no, Jade, don't bother to come back.

Tori just blinks and shrugs, and gets up (without the pillow) to slam the door on her face, audibly locking it. She calls that they'll _gladly_ leave, but there's no way Jade is leaving without her stuff, so if she would kindly shut the fuck up so they can pack?

They don't leave until almost three hours later. The packing isn't what takes them so long (Tori uses her magic to stuff everything in a conjured bottomless trunk that she then shrinks and drops on Jade's school bag), but the fact that Jade is by now so turned on (by their previous activities, Tori's temper and the effortless display of magical ability) that she calmly sheds her remaining clothes and jumps her girlfriend, who gladly welcomes the advance and gleefully helps her defile every inch of Jade's former bedroom just to spite her bitch of a mother.

Tori makes it a point to touch her as much as possible in plain view of the Lost Angel when they leave the room, and Jade drops her house keys, grabs the money off the counter, kisses Tori deeply and flips her mother off before leaving the house.

In a move that they'll admit is solely out of spite (to piss Jade's mother off even more), they spend a minute or five making out against Jade's car, knowing that they're being seen not only by the woman but also by several nosy neighbors, and then they each get inside their cars to leave for the Vega Sanctuary.

(That episode manages to make the couple crack up every time they remember it for weeks afterwards.)

Later, Tori admits that she was just a little bit close to using her magic to silence the screeching woman, but decided to just wait and see. The rest of the gang stares at her in silence for a moment, distracted from their collective effort to arrange Jade's things in Tori's bedroom, and she barely avoids fidgeting as she continues to make some space in the closet.

(It's not as if Jade doesn't already have some clothes there, but that's very different from her whole wardrobe just moving.

They end up having to enlarge it a little with magic, and Tori's effortless demonstration of rune magic, an art that the Guardians admit is hard for them, makes everyone gape in admiration.)

Then Beck barks out a laugh, startled, and congratulates the couple on a job well done.

The trio of Guardians seems a little more hesitant, divided between a similar opinion (literally everyone hates Jade's mother just on principle since they learnt how she treats Tori – not that they didn't severely dislike her before) and a bit of legitimate concern because, excuse you, Tori, you're not supposed to try and curse someone just because they annoy you – and no, that someone not being human doesn't make it any better.

Finally, they all agree that Tori wanting to curse someone isn't anything new, but she's never _actually_ done it, and Jade's mother would've deserved it anyway, so really it's no harm done.

Somehow they make it to the Saturday before the last week of term without any _actual_ issues popping up, the worst event being Sikowitz' almost-blackmail to force the gang to perform at _another_ children's party in November (it's disturbing and embarrassing and the annoying birthday boy's even more maddening brother is very nearly attacked by both Tori and Jade, as he doesn't seem to _care_ that Tori isn't interested), but all in all it's just business as usual – so much so that Jade would almost think that July night just a nightmare, but... it's so _painfully_ real, she can't often forget that the world isn't as she thought it to be less than half a year ago.

It's just the way Tori's skin and eyes ripple with magic, how Robbie speaks up more, how Cat doesn't hide her intelligence, how Beck's sense of humor is sharper and darker, how Andre isn't quite as close with the Demons of the group, how Trina isn't so obnoxious anymore, how Tori seems worried more often and how the cousins conjure spheres of pure black magic whenever the Guardians aren't around.

It's the way the dynamics of the gang have changed so profoundly that she sometimes has to catch herself before she can ask if they're all really friends or just hanging around for her benefit.

It's how her friends are more openly protective of her, but one trio also seems to step carefully around the other sometimes.

It's in the way their eyes flicker another color when they're pissed or upset, how when they're outside the Sanctuary two of the cousins reel back at a tell-tale sign of blue but the other's eyes flash a threatening red.

It's things that Jade notices frequently, now, and she can't help but to wonder if it's always been this way and she was just unaware, blind because they _wanted_ her to be blind.

If nothing's changed, what does that mean for their dynamics as a group?

She's afraid to ask.

–o–

_**December 09, 2012. California, USA** _

The beach is empty, cleared of all Human life courtesy of the first oncoming storm that Los Angeles has seen in years, but it works just as well for the gang – wide open places are easy to manage, but crowds make them nervous now that Lucifer's upped his game, and a tucked away stretch of land without any onlookers feels almost like a blessing.

They have been terribly stressed the last few months, tense in anticipation for the next attack to come (because they know it won't be small – it can't be small, and even if she won't say it it's obvious Tori's worried about her ability to fight it off), and they reluctantly agreed to go out for a while to relax.

Most of them seem to be doing a fair job of letting the cold sea air blow away the stiffness on their shoulders, but Tori– she's always an exception, Jade can't help but to think with fond exasperation when she sees her girlfriend hanging back, face set in that perpetual frown that very rarely leaves her, these days.

She got worse maybe a week or so ago, she notes in her mind while Cat chatters excitedly about something she really can't care about.

(Just because her best friend isn't dumb doesn't mean she's not childish. Jade still has a hard time staying interested in half the things Cat says.)

Jade frowns when Tori plops down on a rock and looks at her feet, now completely ignoring the gang. She's vaguely aware of murmuring some sort of excuse to Cat before making her way to her girlfriend, hopping up to sit next to her.

"Hey, Vega," she greets as she places an arm around her waist and tugs her in to kiss her temple.

Tori manages a small smile. "Hey, baby."

"Are you okay? You seem off today."

She sighs, but doesn't try to convince her that nothing's wrong. "I'm sorry, I'm killing the mood, aren't I?"

"Of course you aren't. Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Jade has to ask – because, sometimes, when Tori gets in a mood, it's about things she still doesn't want Jade to know about. She doesn't try to say that everything's alright, but she certainly avoids answering. One memorable time she even pretended her mom was calling her to get away from the conversation– only for Holly Vega to wander by.

Tori stays silent for long minutes, long enough for Cat to convince the guys to build a sandcastle for her, long enough that Jade almost thinks that she's going to change the topic _again_ , but then–

"Do you remember that last play we did for Peterson's class last week?"

Jade nearly rolls her eyes. "The one where we played a couple _again_ , you mean?"

It's almost ridiculous, really, how teachers seem to have taken Jade and Tori's now public relationship as an invitation to have them interpret couples whenever they can. It hasn't even been two months since they came out at school and already they've had to play five previously written couples and create six more.

Sikowitz, at least, has the excuse of being insane.

Tori looks like she wants to smile at Jade's rhetorical question, but for some reason she grimaces and looks away.

"I... recognized someone from the public. Opening night. I–"

Jade kisses her, mostly in part because she doesn't want Tori to keep torturing herself over whatever it was she did to that person – or, more likely, considering the nature of her "job" and her self-confessed proficiency at it, what she did to their loved ones.

She doesn't know if Tori's ever met someone related to one of her... victims, as this is the first time she's mentioned it, but she's sure that no matter how many times it may or may not have happened it's bound to still be very disturbing, to see the indirect results of one of her kills.

Jade doesn't really like to think about it, even though she firmly believes that Tori isn't wholly responsible for whatever number of deaths she caused, having been one of mindless Assassins who only knew to follow the commands of their King. But Tori won't accept that reasoning, not with the guilt that eats away at her, so she doesn't try to convince her.

That's a fight she doesn't want them to have.

She pulls away slowly, caressing Tori's cheek, and then kisses her again just to see red eyes flutter open for a second time when she ends the kiss.

"Hey, lovebirds!"

Jade sighs against Tori's lips, irritated at her so-called best friend, and briefly contemplates deepening their kiss as a passive-aggressive way to tell the youngest Guardian to fuck off, but she feels Tori's tiny smile and sighs again.

She doesn't have the heart to make their friend go away when she helps pull Tori out of her moods.

"What do you want, Cat?"

Just because she's not going to order her to go away doesn't mean that she has to be nice about it.

(These last few months, her quota of "nice" has been filled by helping a self-loathing, probably mildly depressed girlfriend. Cat has a large support base, while Tori only really has her family, their friends –which is more than a bit questionable, sometimes– and Jade.

It's not that much of a competition, really.)

Cat pouts, and Jade sighs again before sitting properly to face her best friend. Tori allows her forehead to drop on Jade's shoulder, eyes closed and body relaxed.

"Jadey," she whines, acting as the kid everyone thinks her to be, "don't be mean. I just wanted to know if you'd seen my bibbles."

Jade frowns, both at the nickname (she hates it) and at the mention of that awful candy.

"Weren't you supposed to have it forbidden?" Tori asks, twisting her neck a little to look at Cat. "How come you managed to get more?"

The Guardian blinks, and promptly smiles in a very obvious attempt to seem completely innocent. Jade's managed to memorize that face, by now – it's a disturbingly frequent expression from Cat, another thing that makes her wonder if she was just blind or her friends have been acting differently.

"Geez, you say the strangest things. Why wouldn't I be allowed to eat some harmless candy?"

"Harmless, she says" Tori mutters, just as Jade rolls her eyes and calls bullshit.

"That trick isn't going to work anymore," she says, "not after you nearly ripped Tori's head off the last time she took a bibble bag from you."

"So she has it?"

"Cat. Not the point."

"Oh, right, I– wait, I _said_ I was sorry!"

"Still hurt – not as much as an Archangel's Holy arrows, of course," Tori comments, "but then again you're only a Guardian."

Cat pouts. "Thanks for that. I'll remember it next time someone tries to kill your girlfriend."

"Who also happens to be your best friend."

The Guardian shrugs, and Jade frowns. "Wait, how do you even know how much an Archangel's power would hurt a Demon?"

"I'll tell you later, if you want – I don't think Cat would manage to stomach that story."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

Tori's lips twitch at the over-the-top reaction, while Jade rolls her eyes.

"Still," the youngest girl calls after a moment, "I'm curious."

Jade looks at her girlfriend at that, just in time to catch a glimpse of a frown that smooths over for slight confusion. "Are you sure? You have at least some idea of how we Demons are, and I'm sure you know I was worse than most – that story might be a little too much for you."

She shrugs. "Maybe. But you're my friend, Tori, and I'd really like to get to know you better."

"Cat..."

"I'm serious."

Jade frowns, feeling as if she's missing something important, and the two pure-blooded immortals exchanging glances charged with meaning irritates her even more.

"What's going on?"

Cat glances at Jade and back at Tori, apparently looking for some sort of confirmation, which comes in the form of a short nod. When Cat turns to Jade again, she still seems reluctant to speak up.

"It's just..."

"They don't know a lot about me" Tori interrupts before Jade can snap, taking her girlfriend's hand in an attempt to calm her down. "Until you found out about what we are, I hadn't really told them anything. And... I barely talked when it was just us, to be honest."

"We only knew two major things" Cat explains. "First, that she was a powerful Assassin – powerful enough to knock Andre out without him even noticing she was close, and he's the strongest of us. Second, that she was Beck's cousin and was kicked out because she failed to kill you."

"Those are the only important personal things they knew about me, and I didn't even tell them" Tori smiles, almost bitterly. "I didn't really like them at first, see. Beck introduced me to your Guardians a few days after I got settled here, because he didn't want there to be any trouble, and I went along with it only because I didn't feel like fighting for my life, either – even if I was confident I would win. I guess I don't have to tell you that I just barely tolerated them."

Jade quirks an eyebrow, because she'd already deduced that her girlfriend and friends wouldn't have liked each other at first (seriously, an Assassin and the Guardians of said Demon's last target?), and part of her wonders how she hadn't deduced that they must've known each other before she met Tori – precisely because, even if in retrospective Tori was a bit standoffish when she first transferred to Hollywood Arts, there wasn't any of the underlying tension that she'd have expected from their first contact with each other.

"So I guess it took you at least a few months to even talk to them, right?"

Cat giggles. "You should've seen her, Jade, all quietly ignoring us every time we decided to hang out at her place because it's bigger than Beck's RV."

"Because you were too damn noisy _and_ you walked into my room every other day!" she complains. "Half the time I was trying to sleep and the rest I was trying to understand Humans enough to pretend being one – and I wasn't even halfway comfortable here to begin with! And _that's_ not to mention the times I was trying to figure out how to make my homework, after I started school."

Even Jade lets out a startled laugh at that, and Tori scowls.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, you two. Try being a fifteen-year-old Demon recently kicked out of Tartarus, constantly surrounded by Fallens and Guardians and Humans and _then_ tell me if I was overreacting."

Jade smirks, amused, and squeezes Tori's hand to let her know she's only teasing. "So, what I'm hearing is that they annoyed you."

Tori rolls her eyes in exaggerated aggravation. "You have _no_ idea."

"She very nearly tried to kill whoever barged into her room, the first few weeks" Cat confides in a stage whisper. "Thankfully for the guys, I was the one who went there most of the time, and she went easy on me."

The half-blood blinks at her girlfriend. "You, forgiving a Guardian even though they're being completely annoying?"

Tori smiles faintly at that, turning to look at Jade. "They couldn't believe it either the first time Cat came into my room and I only threw her a pillow. The guys' foreheads got acquainted with my alarm clock."

Jade blinks in realization. "So that's what happened? I was curious as to _why_ they decided to take turns to appear with a headache and a bruise."

Tori's grin turns sheepish. "Yeah, well... I'd only been here for a couple of weeks, so I was still trying to get used to the change in atmosphere and the constant use of magic, and they _really_ weren't helping."

"And you didn't do the same to Cat because..."

The Demon frowns at the question and looks away, picking up a small rock and spinning it between her fingers. She rubs the back of Jade's hand with her thumb even as her opposite hand begins to crush the pebble, and she takes her time to answer.

"I'm not sure, I... I think that she might've reminded me a little of my Alumna."

Cat blinks. "Those are the Assassins in training, right? So she was your student?" Tori nods slowly in response, still not looking at them, and Cat voice is soft when she asks "What happened to her?"

Tori shrugs, and it's painful, because it's evident that she's worried about her former student but she's not sure how to feel about the fact that she still cares (or maybe, knowing how Assassins are, that she even ever _cared_ in the first place).

"I don't know. Last I knew, a few days before I left on my last mission, she was gaining respect in her low-rank clan and was being considered to take command of another after her birthday – I was... very proud of her, since becoming a matriarch at ten isn't a small feat. She'd be turning twelve next week. I wonder what happened to her after my expulsion..."

Jade's eyes go to Tori's opposite hand when she hears a faint grinding sound, and is startled when she sees dust falling from between her fingers. The Demon's frown deepens, annoyed and confused and worried and _angry_ , and for a second or two Jade fears that expression might become permanent.

"Tori?" she calls.

Her girlfriend sighs and opens her hand, the pebble reduced to dust. "It's just... when a Demon is judged a criminal, if they're labeled as anything but a petty Delinquent, every apprentice they may have had also become pariahs, weighed down by the fact that their Master broke the Code. Considering _how_ I was judged... my expulsion would've affected her greatly, enough that she may still be a low-rank."

"Even though she has potential to be in the high ranks already? Because I'm understanding that she _does_ have it" Jade asks, starting to feel annoyed. Tori nods, obviously _far_ more upset than Jade and Cat combined, and Jade frowns. "But why would it matter what you did? Surely it shouldn't matter if someone's teacher..."

"It does, in Tartarus" Tori interrupts. "For us, the relationship between a Master and their apprentices is _everything_ , especially in the Assassin class. Just the best of the best become Masters, because the young's education is one of the most important things in the world – right up there with following Lucifer's command faithfully. In Tartarus, the Master is the predominant influence on their apprentices' lives, far above even their own parents, and as such the apprentice is extremely prone to follow every single step taken by their Master. Therefore, if one's Master is a criminal, then surely one is also likely to break the Code."

Jade frowns. "But..."

Tori sighs. "Jade, please, can you drop it? I'm not going to argue this. That's just the way things are in Tartarus and, no offense, but there's nothing you can possibly do to even _begin_ to make Demons rethink that opinion."

"Do you still believe that?" the Demon doesn't answer, choosing instead to focus on another rock, and Jade's frown deepens. "Tori?"

She shrugs. "I... I still believe it. I'm sorry, Jade, I really am, but I was raised to feel that conviction. Even if I've changed most of my beliefs, I can't help but keep others – I _did_ live fifteen years in Tartarus, after all, and, well... evidence doesn't lie."

"Oh, so you still think anyone who isn't a full-blooded Demon is an insignificant fly?"

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Isn't it? But that _is_ what you were taught to believe, right? Isn't that the reason why it never bothered you to kill whoever you were told to, because everyone else is inferior to your people?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Jade scoffs. "Of course _I'm_ the ridiculous one. I'm a half-blood, after all."

"Jade..."

"Fuck off, Vega."

The older teen knows (she's _sure_ ) she _is_ actually being ridiculous, and that her accusations are untrue and irrational and, worse of all, hurting her girlfriend, so she stands and walks away to try and calm down.

But Tori (sweet, beautiful Tori, who never wants to leave a discussion unfinished, even if that means folding to Jade's wishes as she did when Jade declared she didn't want anyone to know of their relationship yet) follows after her, trying to get her to stop so they can actually talk, and eventually she grows tired (because she _knows_ Jade, perhaps better than anyone else, and she knows that Jade isn't going to stop voluntarily) and grabs her arm, whirling her around so they are face to face.

Jade glares at her girlfriend.

"Let go of me."

"Jade, please–"

" _Now_ , Vega."

The Demon glares back, now, and it's all Jade can do to not flinch when a shade of red flashes through her eyes and Tori's already strong grip tightens momentarily around her forearm.

"You're being ridiculous and childish, _West_ ," she snaps, and Jade's taken aback because Tori's rarely said her last name and _never_ like that, "so no, I'm not letting go until you shut up and listen."

"Why should I? It's pretty obvious what you think."

Tori scowls. "Stop accusing me of things you have _no_ idea about, damn it! You have no idea how hard–"

"So it's hard to pretend?"

Red flashes by again, and this time Jade can't quite contain her wince – because Tori's looking more like a Demon _now_ than she did even the night of Idvke's attack, and she's obviously starting to lose control of her magic, and also because her grip is almost too strong now and if it gets any stronger it's going to hurt.

"I spent fifteen years of my life in Tartarus," she says softly, in a voice that's somehow _worse_ than a yell, "the place where nightmares are born, where children are prepared from before _birth_ to fight and kill and ruin lives at the orders of the son of a bitch who's our King, to be a mindless killing machine just as thousands of generations before us, just as thousands of generations after us.

"You have _no_ idea how hard it is for me to try and fit in here, knowing that I never will, that I'm too far gone to step out of the dark, that I'm simply not worthy to even walk down a street because _I have killed more people than most have ever known_ _–_ that I'm not and will never be good enough for my family, for those I _want_ to be friends with, _for you_ , because I'm a _monster_ and it's just a matter of time before all of you see it and leave.

"I try, Jade, I really do, but there's some things that can't be forgotten in just _two fucking years_. I'm trying, but you can't demand I forget everything I was taught, everything I was _made_ to be and believe, exactly _when_ you want me to! I want to change, but you have to give me _time_ if you really want me to, because it's _not fucking easy_!"

Jade vaguely registers the rest of the gang staring in silence from the distance, flinching every time Tori raises her voice, completely confused because they've never seen her lose her temper this way and it's the first time they've really been confronted with a hint of the girl she was before she was kicked out from Hell, before she was forced to change her identity because there wasn't a place on Earth for the person she was in Tartarus.

"I'm not asking you to do anything but be honest with me for _once_!"

Tori pales and takes a step back as if struck, and Jade winces thinking that her words finally went too far – because not telling isn't the same thing as _lying_ , and even though Tori doesn't talk about her time in Tartarus by her own initiative, even though sometimes she refuses to answer when Jade asks, she's never been anything _but_ honest.

(Not even when it obviously hurts, when the memories are too painful for her to think about, when all she really wants is to forget.)

It quickly becomes apparent, however, that her words (angry, irrational, _completely undeserved_ ) aren't what caused that reaction – and it becomes evident when, after a moment of complete, tense silence, she falls to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut, clutching her head like it _hurts_.

It doesn't even take Jade a second to kneel beside her girlfriend, paler than she usually is, scared and worried and part of her trying to figure out what is happening to Tori even as the rest of her is almost losing the battle against panic.

Beck is at Tori's other side just moments later, turning her to her back and trying to get her to open her eyes or tell them what's wrong. Tori starts to thrash about seconds before the Guardians slam to a stop above them, and Beck grabs his cousin's head just as a pale Robbie tugs Jade away.

"What are you– Let me _go_ , Shapiro!"

"We don't know what's going on, Jade" Cat reminds her, grabbing her hand tightly to keep her from leaving their side and returning to Tori's just as Robbie brings out his beaded bracelet to make a translucent shield around them.

Andre and the Demons stay outside the shield, the Guardian tense and looking around as if he expects an attack to come from any direction – which he probably does.

"Andre" Beck calls, still not letting go of Tori's head. "Harris!" he snaps when their friend doesn't react. "Hold her still."

Andre complies, mechanically and still looking around, but he keeps her head in place as the Fallen stands up and raises a fist up to his chest, covering it with the opposite hand and murmuring a long string of nonsense.

Suddenly, a slight storm picks up around the group, raising the sand until they can't see anything outside the small area, and when the sand falls down it forms a ring on the Vegas' backyard. Beck is still muttering, hands in a different position now, and Cat lets go of Jade.

Still, she doesn't move. "What...?"

"Tori taught him that spell" Robbie explains quietly, eyes going from one Demon to the other and back to Jade. "She was worried that there'd come an attacker that she wouldn't manage to defeat, and she wanted to make sure all of us would have a way to teleport the group away – we do, of course, but Beck... well, he was expelled as a child, so he didn't know anything until Tori came around and taught him some stuff. Shields and teleportation spells, mostly."

"She was planning to stay behind, wasn't she?" Jade asks, feeling self-conscious and guilty and _wrong_. She wonders how hard has Tori really been trying to keep her alive, and for how long. "When did she...?"

Andre lets out a long breath. "A little over a year ago" he says quietly. "She was slowly getting closer to us, she was _trying_ , and then one day she told us she was going to help us protect you – she'd only been keeping an eye out for Assassins before that, but she was very clear that it was for her own safety, since she was also in danger of being targeted."

"Her main focus was actually to teach Beck and Trina a bunch of spells and how to use them in a fight, and how to fight without magic, so they'd be actually able to help protect you and just fight off Assassins in general– you know, just in case they needed to. She also started to help us plan and train so we'd be better Guardians and story wouldn't repeat itself but with another ending."

Jade sighs shakily at Cat's words and returns to her girlfriend's side, taking her hand and caressing her forehead. "Vega... Tori, baby, please wake up" she calls softly, hand tracing down to press lightly against the rapidly throbbing vein of her neck.

Slowly, Tori opens her eyes (red, so impossibly red) and locks them with Jade, gaze full of pain and face contorted to show the same suffering, eyes glistening with all the tears that a Demon is physically incapable of shedding. Jade can't help it (she doesn't really want to), and tears gather in her own.

Cat kneels at Jade's side, hand pressing against the small of her back in silent support, and it takes all Jade has in her to remember that, in that moment, Tori needs her to not break down against her protector and childhood friend.

"What is Beck doing?" she asks instead, trying to distract herself even as she looks into pained red eyes.

"He's keeping a shield up around us" Andre explains. "Since we don't know what's wrong with Tori, we can't risk to move her inside physically and teleportation just isn't possible, so we need something to stop any first attack to give us time to move you inside if we _are_ attacked."

"Won't he need to stop casting at some point? I mean, isn't he using his magic?"

"No, he feels tired only after he stops casting this shield, not when it's up. This shield is his and Tori's favorite because of that, because it can be kept up for hours. His record is one and a half hours with Tori throwing some small spells at him, and he managed to withstand a moderately strong attack – granted, he almost passed out when his shield fell that time, but..."

"What if a Kalaus comes this time? I mean, Tori said they're crazy strong, and if he can resist just one attack..."

" _If_ that happens," Cat answers, flinching at the thought, "then the guys will cover us while I get you into the Sanctuary, and we'll have to take the risk and move Tori too. But– we'd rather only do that if we are attacked."

Jade sighs and tightens her hold on Tori's hand. Every tattoo is visible now, her control shot to hell by the pain, and Tori briefly returns the grip with just enough strength for Jade to know that she's aware of them and the plan, but not enough for it to hurt.

It figures that the idiot would be worried about her even when Tori's actually the one suffering here, Jade thinks with fond exasperation.

"What's happening to you?" she mutters, brushing her girlfriend's face with the tips of her fingers.

"She's going through a conflict" a deep voice speaks calmly.

Everyone in the group turns towards the threat sharply, with only Jade staying down, and Cat moves around Tori's limp frame to stand between them and the newcomer before they even process who is standing there.

Jade can see the speaker from between her friends' tense bodies, and she takes a sharp breath when her brain catches up.

He's a tall man, with tanned and wrinkled skin, long silver hair mixed with a few black and red strands, red eyes sharp and aware ( _threatening_ ), and his visible skin bears the same kind of tattoos branded on Tori – only a lot more, and he even has a few marks on his cheekbones (tall, and oddly familiar) and temples. He wears a long black coat with silver and red details that reaches to his ankles and clean black boots, and it's painfully obvious that _this_ is the kind of Demon that terrifies Tori to death.

Powerful, ruthless, loyal, experienced, skilled, _dangerous_.

The kind of Demon she was before her expulsion, and definitely _not_ someone she'd feel confident about fighting. And with her out of the way...

Jade knows her friends don't stand a chance against _this_ threat, yet she still stands in a futile attempt to feel less like prey, eyeing this Assassin carefully and pretending she doesn't have her heart beating wildly on her throat.

The man stares back impassibly, calm and even a bit bored, his hands still behind his back as he regards a group he obviously doesn't consider a threat.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Jade manages to ask.

(If her voice shakes a little, well, sue her. This guy is intimidating, and if Tori would be worried then she thinks she has the right to feel at the very least scared.)

"I am not here to kill you, Miss West" the man says, ignoring her first question. "Your life isn't in danger from any of His Majesty's servants today."

"Try and convince Tori of that" Jade retorts. "She'd kill you if she could move."

The Demon raises an eyebrow – the first expression to show on his face, even though he still radiates indifference. "You mean Rivot, yes?"

"What do you want?" Andre cuts him off before the stranger can add anything else. " _If_ you don't want to kill Jade, and mind you, that's a big _if_ , then what are you doing here?"

The man ignores him entirely and eyes Beck with something close to interest. "You seem familiar... are you perchance Rivot's cousin? Czebek Threamt?"

Beck stiffens, almost faltering in his chant, but shakes it off and tries to pretend hearing that name (a name he hasn't heard in over a decade, a name he'd probably forgotten) doesn't affect him in the slightest.

"Cut it" Andre snaps, feeling Beck's hesitation. "Answer me."

A tiny, almost imperceptible smile twists the man's expression for less than a second, and a shudder runs down Jade's spine at the sight.

"My purpose is to retrieve Rivot, to return her to her rightful place with the Assassin bai Kalaus under His Majesty's command, as He has wished it to happen."

"She doesn't want to go back" Cat cuts softly.

The man looks at her with contempt. "Well, she is hardly choosing, don't you think? Mind you, I firmly believe she would gladly accept to return by her own will – she's always been one of His Majesty's most loyal subjects, and that is a loyalty that can't be lost. Why would she reject the chance to go back home?"

He looks between the Guardians to glance at Tori, and his expression softens enough for Jade to notice and think that there might be some affection, there, regardless of what Tori's told her about Assassins being little more than emotionless killing machines.

She starts to wonder if this is the man Tori spoke about so many months ago, the Knight she had to break contact with after her mentor's expulsion (she wants to hit herself, because now that she remembers _that_ it makes sense that Tori was so upset about their discussion – she was in the same position as her apprentice), the one for whom she wanted to become a Knight. The possibility scares her, because if he's really a Knight then he's _far_ more powerful than anyone her friends have ever faced.

They're used to fighting Assassins, and not even the strongest ones, but a Knight (a Demon stronger than even a Kalaus, stronger than Tori was when she was ordered to kill Jade) would be so far out of their league he wouldn't even be in the same galaxy.

She wishes, she _hopes_ that he's really not that man, but then he sighs–

"Poor girl. Had I known she was going to suffer this much, I would have asked His Majesty to let me retrieve her before He started this. Pain is always more bearable surrounded by the warmth of Tartarus' magic."

– and Jade's breath hitches, because that sounds almost like a confirmation of her fears, and she wants to tell her friends they have to leave, get inside the Sanctuary where he won't be able to touch them and drag Tori with them if needed, and do it _right now_ , but before she can speak up they're already reacting.

"You can't force her to go back!" Andre snaps. "She broke your law, and Lucifer expelled her as your laws command! Not even Lucifer can go against your Code, _Demon_!"

It's the first time she hears him say that word as if it was an insult, and she flinches thinking that now it makes _a lot_ of sense that Tori isn't really as close to him as she'd been led to believe.

Angels and Fallen Demons can hardly be best friends when the former looks down on the latter's kind.

The man's face fills with contempt once again, this time directed at Andre, who twitches as if he was trying really hard not to flinch back. "Well, what a rude Guardian. What did Rivot ever see in you escapes my comprehension. Now, be quiet, _boy_ , and let the grown-ups talk."

There is a groan and the gang sharply looks at Tori, who is sitting up and clutching her head. Her eyes are closed and she shakes her head, and the Guardians move around her quickly and move Jade closer to the Sanctuary while Beck takes a few steps closer to them.

Jade wonders why the haste, and she has her answer when the Demon walks closer and kneels next to her.

"Rivot?" he calls, softly and sounding almost concerned. "How are you feeling?"

Tori shakes her head again and looks up, before quickly getting on her knee with her head held down. "Milord."

The gang freezes, worst fears confirmed, and it takes only a moment for the Guardians to stand in front of Jade while Beck tries to tug her back into the Vega Sanctuary, his shield gone, replaced by a barrier made of Holy power that doesn't quite surround them – not when Beck would be trapped inside, weakened and hurting by something that is worse than poison to him.

The Demon puts a hand on her shoulder. "Long time no see, Von Gieri. What is the last thing you can remember?"

"The ninth day of Bijah, on 9997. I was summoned for a mission assignment at the fourth office of the Vaihe district – but I don't remember going to the office, and I don't recall leaving Tartarus."

"Is that so?" he asks neutrally. "That would make more than two years of lost memories, then. A shame."

"Two years, milord?" she asks, somehow not sounding confused or upset or... affected by any emotion, really. She moves her head from one side to the other, still not looking behind her (where the gang waits, paralyzed, terrified, because _this isn't Tori_ – no, this is the Demon that tried to kill Jade, the ruthless Assassin who didn't kill Andre just because it wasn't part of her mission). "May I ask where we are, milord?"

The Knight shakes his head. "I am not at liberty to answer those questions, young one. His Majesty will receive you personally and explain the situation to you."

Her spine straightens at the news, and her voice when she answers sounds strained, as if she was trying really hard not to show emotion. "I am honored that His Majesty would take time off his day to talk to one of his servants" she says, bowing her head.

The man stands up and she follows suit, straightening her jacket almost unconsciously.

"Shall we go, then?"

"Right after you, milord."

The Knight's eyes briefly shine with a smile that the rest of his expression doesn't betray, and he vanishes quietly, soon followed by the younger Demon.

It takes Jade far too long (enough that her friends react, that they pull her quickly into the Sanctuary and call the Vegas, enough that they come back) to process that her girlfriend is now back in the place where she was raised – back to the life she didn't want to remember, the life she didn't want anymore, the past that ashamed her.

It's even worse because her memories are gone, lost, and with them they took the girl she'd become – it's worse because Tori doesn't exist anymore, not really.

But, perhaps, what hurts Jade the most is something more selfish, more centered on herself than on her girlfriend – because, now, the girl she loves doesn't remember _her_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date Bijah 9th, 9997, is the Tartarus-Heaven equivalent of May 1st, 2010, the day when Rivot von Gieri was ordered to kill Jade West.


	6. Fall of the assassin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The author is entirely too tired and forgot to update. Apologies.

_**May 1st, 2010. Kalaus Manor, Tartarus** _

It was easy for the most powerful clan under Lucifer's will to fall into a routine – almost ridiculously so, in fact, because the Kalaus weren't given assignments as often as the other clans, being so strong and simply too overqualified for the kind of mission that saw even members of the second-best clan of Tartarus leave for Earth.

That lack of frequent work, coupled with the fact that there was only so much for a Demon to do in Tartarus when they weren't working, was what made the Kalaus interact almost like a very dysfunctional Human family (not that any of them would've thought of, or appreciated, the analogy). They were still cold and standoffish, of course, but they tolerated each other and hung around together far more often than any other clan.

This was one such routine day, average and painfully boring.

Of the current twenty members, five were gone on assignments, six were off doing whatever it was that the most sadistic bastards of the First Sphere did during their down time (which often meant hanging around the Abyss or Gehenna, in hopes of being allowed to help torture someone), one was in the Mission Office to receive an assignment (lucky bastard) and the remaining eight were hanging out in their manor's sitting room.

They'd long spent the topic of their latest missions and, seeing as no one was in the mood to train, had ended up complaining on how boring their lives were.

Really, being a Kalaus was mostly about glory and status, and almost nothing about actually enforcing their King's will upon Earth.

Things had been a little more interesting since their youngest (but not newest) member had been initiated. She, at least, always had a sharp tongue ready and was more than willing to kick their asses into gear.

Rivot von Gieri was serious and professional, even at fifteen years old, and she meant a constant source of entertainment for her current clan – even when she thought they were insane and unable to take their jobs seriously, which was _all the time_.

She also kind of hated them. Probably.

(Then again, she seemed to hate everyone but her Alumna, Kaira Dravo, and her promised, Raikai van Groumn – and, if one were inclined to state the obvious, the Knights and Lucifer Himself.)

Idvke Groumnhold was seconds away from opening his mouth (something which more often than not started fights that ended with Kalaus Manor in need of repairs) when the double doors opened with a bang, revealing the youngest clan member with her permanently inexpressive face.

Several Kalaus surrounded her immediately, asking all at once about her new mission, and even the few that didn't approach the teenager were almost sitting on the edge of their seats out of pure anticipation.

Rivot's cold red eyes stared at each of them until they quieted down. She only spoke when her usual voice, barely above a whisper in volume, could be heard with no issue. "You are annoying me."

The group backed away some, shuffling almost sheepishly. One of the Demons that had remained in their seats stood up in that moment and conjured a glass of water, which he handed to the girl in silence.

"What is your mission?" he asked once she'd drunk half the glass.

"Kill a triple-protected, imitating natural causes, with no collaterals within a three-week deadline starting tomorrow. I have also been given an _ishva_."

The older Demon, Kramlov van Groumn, nodded in understanding, his expression showing that he felt the permits as unnecessary as she did.

"So your target has three Guardians and you have to avoid killing them too?" Idvke spoke up, rubbing his chin. "What a shame. It is always a pleasure to destroy one of them."

"Last time you fought a Holy, the whole clan had to go support you" she reminded him, voice colder than was usual even for her, not even bothering to look at him. The reason for that was clear when she added "And I was nearly killed."

"I already apologized for that."

"If we don't think it enough, you shouldn't presume Rivot would accept your worthless apology" the first Demon snapped.

"Peace, Kramlov. He's not worth it."

He sneered, but didn't argue. Rivot looked at Groumnhold down her nose (an amazing feat, as he was nearly a head and a half taller than her) and decided to twist the knife a little further.

"Remember that several of us would've rather see you dead, Idvke. The only reason you're still alive is that His Majesty wouldn't have appreciated it if we hadn't done our best to keep you in this life."

With that, she handed the glass back to Kramlov with a small nod of gratitude before she left, moving up the stairs and presumably to her quarters. The assembled Demons waited until her door closed softly before nearly all of them burst out in laughter.

"Oh, she absolutely loathes your very existence" Aarash Gieri chuckled.

Junst Sedzava sighed. "Be careful, Idvke. Were it not for the Code, she would have killed you already."

Kramlov snorted. "Please, she's likely searching for a loophole to justify murdering him."

The rest cracked up at that, and a few started to howl when Idvke quickly retreated to his own quarters on the opposite end of the building from Rivot's. Predictably, none of them cared that they were close to losing control over their bowels with the force of their amusement – Rivot _was_ , after all, much more liked by them than Idvke, who was only in the clan because of their matriarch's respect for their previous leader.

If Demons had any knowledge of such emotions, they would've admitted to being glad to have her in their clan, and would happily accept they saw her as family if they understood the concept.

It had never occurred to any of them that they might one day lose her.

–o–

While her partners continued to humiliate the most pathetic member of their clan, Rivot was having her own problems as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror every Kalaus quarter possessed, an object she despised with all her being due to its unnecessary extravagance but tolerated because it helped her make sure she was presentable.

She always was, of course. Since she began on the high ranks her hair had been tinted black with clear silver lines, cut to a manageable length and pulled back with a simple leather string. She wore the regulatory black uniform whenever she was on duty (which wasn't very often, now that she was a Kalaus) and a semi-formal outfit that reflected her station during her downtime. As jewelry she used only the silver-and-red ring of the Kalaus clan on her right hand, and around her neck the choker that Raikai had given her as a symbol of their promise.

Simple, appropriate, functional and sufficiently elegant. Exactly as a Kalaus should look.

Now, however, her worry wasn't on whether her uniform looked presentable (it was), but rather on the tattoo she'd gotten after her last mission three months before – a twirling vine-like design that moved up the column of her throat. She was proud of her marks, because they were the proof that she was an useful tool that her King could call upon at any moment knowing that it would work as needed, but now...

That target, a retired Archangel living two miles south of Sagarmatha, had somehow had time to talk to her before she took his life, and she couldn't help but to wonder about his words sometimes.

She should be reading the thick file she'd copied from the Archives, to study her new objective, but instead she was touching her latest tattoo as she frowned at her reflection.

The Archangel had looked... almost _broken_ when he commented on what a pity it was that Tartarus had made her a murderer before she stopped being a child – that it was so _sad_ that she seemed almost dead inside, that her face didn't appear as if it had ever shown a smile...

Rivot couldn't understand what he meant, no matter how hard she tried, and if she had a flaw it was how much she loathed not understanding something. She could get obsessive if she didn't, ponder on the issue until her head hurt and she couldn't think of anything else, until she forgot to focus on something else – anything, so long as it took her mind off that frustration.

Case in point, she was still replaying the last words of a victim three months after his death, when normally they were little more than a number on her service record and a note on the mission books every Assassin personally wrote.

Her hand twitched to reach the mission book tucked away on her jacket's pocket, but she lowered it and fisted it at her side.

She sighed and shook her head.

"This is ridiculous" she murmured to herself, for perhaps the fiftieth time that week.

Rivot whirled back to her desk and the file that awaited her study, once again balancing the advantages and disadvantages of throwing that damn mirror away. Maybe, part of her thought, she wouldn't be thinking about a dead Archangel's last words if she couldn't see herself in there anymore.

(Besides, it's not as if the thing was paramount to her appearance – she hadn't really needed a mirror to assess her looks since she was twelve.)

She was kind of tempted to throw it at Idvke's head – accompanied by a suitably large fireball. Groumnhold was the most annoying individual she had _ever_ met, and even if she was incredibly short-tempered she was constantly close to actually acting on her temper whenever he was around. She would gladly kill him, but the Code sadly restricted the possibility of a Demon physically harming another to training and Idvke, no matter his general stupidity, had enough common sense to not train with her.

Which was a pity, really.

Rivot sat at her desk and opened the file, taking the personal information sheet before looking into past attempts to kill her.

 _Jade Autumn West, born on the eleventh day of Haijah, year 9981 – so she is fifteen years old_ , Rivot thought, frowning. _Protected by Guardian Angels Catherine Valentine, Robert Shapiro and Andre Harris..._

Her frown deepened at the first Guardian's name and she looked for her own sheet inside the file. Once she found it, she scowled. _So she_ _ **is**_ _related to Callum Valentine – same bloodline. The Valentines are traditionalists, so they live in the same area and look after each other's charges, which would give my target three extra protectors. Just what I need._

_Robert Shapiro is a half-breed from a fairly unremarkable line, nothing much to worry about, especially with his sire dead and no close relatives of immortal blood._

_Andre Harris... his sire is a half-breed from a normal line, so that bears no complication. On the other hand, his maternal bloodline is notorious, not too keen on tradition, but strong enough to offset the weakness inherited from his sire. He is also a known disciple of Phillip Luna, which makes him the biggest threat after the Valentines._

She looked back at West's sheet and narrowed her eyes. Three formal Guardians, plus three informal protectors, one of whom was _Callum Valentine_? And she was also living in an area where a strong Archangel, known for fighting Lady Rivot el Svairnz to a draw (not a small feat, as she'd been the second strongest Knight of her time), had established his home.

 _What is so special about you, girl?_ , she wondered. _Why is it that you have such a protection, and why does the King of Tartarus want your head so badly?_

Before she could ponder too deeply, a knock on her door distracted her. The young Kalaus glanced at the sensor chart on her desk to confirm her visitor's identity and lazily unlocked the door with a simple spell, refusing to stand up even for her mentor. Still (and she'd deny it to her dying day), her eyes softened just the tiniest bit when her eyes fell on the old man, the elder Assassin of their clan.

Junst Sedzava stepped in at the unspoken invitation and nodded at her, his own expression softer than usual, with his hands clasped behind his ramrod straight back as any dignified Demon of as high standing as theirs was supposed to stand.

"Good morning, young one."

"I've told you not to call me that, Junst" she reminded him, turning back to the file on her desk. "Repeatedly."

He merely tilted his head, unfazed by her indifferent reaction and nearly bored tone of voice. He was used to her attitude, as every Kalaus (except for Idvke, but he didn't count) had grown within the first year of her membership – it was warranted, after all.

Rivot von Gieri was extremely talented, perhaps one of the strongest in all the history of Tartarus, and her Master's betrayal when she was very young had forced the Orphan to work twice as hard to overcome prejudices and reach the top.

(There were still fools who looked down on her, but she'd risen high enough for those naysayers to be insignificant.)

Her talent and hard work had been appropriately rewarded, which was always a delight for older Demons to see. The Kalaus clan in particular had followed her career closely, expecting great things from the young girl whose ancestors had always, without fail, become part of the elite Assassin clan.

They'd been surprised when she became a low rank matriarch at eight years old, only to be ascended into the middle ranks a year later, having expected her to take longer with her Master's betrayal casting a shadow over her accomplishments. They were satisfied when she was given an Apprentice with barely ten years, and when she was chosen to lead a middle-rank clan at almost twelve years old.

They felt excited when she rose into the high ranks just eleven months later, knowing that it was just a matter of time before she was one of them, and giddy when Laneit el Gourae immediately requested the preteen be allowed to become a Kalaus – of course, the request wasn't accepted until six months after Rivot was inducted into her first high-rank clan, but just knowing that she was soon to be one of them (no one even considered that their King might deny their matriarch's request) was exhilarating.

Still they were dumbstruck when their leader got back home one day followed by a pint-sized Assassin carrying her bag, as they had expected the request to be accepted several months from then – years, even, as no one younger than twenty-five had ever been initiated into their clan. Rivot ignored them all that day, even when Laneit introduced her to the handful of Kalaus in the sitting room, and followed her up the stairs to her new quarters without complaint.

With time, they learnt that she was more of a prodigy than they'd thought, but she was also emotionally and socially stunted to an extent they'd never seen. Kalaus were already oddly open, for Assassins, and it was strange for them to welcome into their ranks a teenager who had absolutely no intention of opening up to them.

Rivot seemed physically incapable of letting her guard down around them, and it took almost a year for them to know anything personal about her – and even then, it was thanks to her most regular sexual partner, Raikai van Groumn, who often popped up and disappeared with Rivot into her quarters.

(He was the only one who ever visited, the only one she ever allowed inside her bedchamber, so it was to no one's surprise when one day they emerged from her quarters with promise chokers.)

Still, it barely took half a year since meeting her for all the clan (again, except for Idvke) to grow fond of her, finding her attitude oddly endearing. They knew there was much more to her than the insignificant amount she let show, and couldn't wait for her expression to soften.

Perhaps when Raikai rose to the Kalaus clan, as he was sure to do?

"Are you going to just stare at me? I do have better things to do with my time, and I'd expect you to have _something_ to do."

Junst blinked, brought out of his daydreams of how she'd look with a similar expression to that often adopted by the other female Kalaus (it would be a magnificent sight, he knew – the von Gieris were all unfairly attractive, and devastatingly perfect when they actually had some emotion in their faces), and bowed his head in silent apology.

"I apologize, Rivot. I got lost in thought."

"You'd better not be _worried_ about me."

Junst raised an eyebrow. "Should I have any reason to?" he shook his head. "No, you are perfectly capable of dealing with anything that His Majesty would task you to do. I'm certain you won't need the three weeks you've been given."

She pursed her lips. "I should hope not. This is certainly the kind of mission that would require a Kalaus, but still nothing much to worry about."

"We rarely have to worry about a mission. But remember that expecting too much of yourself can make a fall hurt harder."

"I will keep that in mind."

Had this been anyone else, those words would've been too arrogant – but this was Rivot von Gieri, so her confidence was more than deserved.

"When do you plan to depart?"

"Tomorrow morning, perhaps, once I have a grip on everything I need to know to successfully complete my mission."

Junst tilted his head. "And I suppose you plan on having young Raikai over tonight?"

She scowled at him. "What does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't. I just thought that perhaps you'd prefer it if Groumnhold was... kept at a reasonable distance."

Rivot's scowled turned positively murderous, perhaps remembering the last time the other Demon had barged into her quarters. Junst nodded his head in agreement – Idvke had no sense of propriety.

"I doubt I will see you before you leave," he said, and she involuntarily snorted at the reminder that he was _not_ a morning person, "so allow me to wish you a good hunting, Rivot."

She almost answered that she didn't need good wishes, but at his quirked eyebrow (she'd retorted that way more times than she cared to count) she sighed. "... Okay."

Junst was faintly amused that she looked almost hurt by saying that, and it wasn't even a proper thank-you. He didn't allow that to show in his face, and instead just bowed his head in farewell before leaving her alone to prepare.

She stared at the closed door for a full ten seconds, part of her feeling oddly torn, and then she shook her head and turned back to her desk.

She had an assassination to plan.

–o–

_**May 14, 2010. California, USA.** _

It wasn't the first time that Rivot von Gieri felt painfully bored during a mission (she'd readily admit to _that_ , being familiar with the sensation since she was roughly eleven years old), but she couldn't remember a worse mission – except perhaps for the Karelia train wreck, when she was forced to wait hours for the vehicle to come into position after a few days to steal the schedule, plan the attack and set it into motion.

 _It's easy to kill a triple-protected_ , she grumbled in her mind. _What is_ _ **not**_ _easy is having to avoid killing anyone else because His Majesty wouldn't be impressed with usage of an ishva. Especially since He already expects so much of me._

The Guardians weren't a bother – she _knew_ that she could very easily kill all three of them (plus the adult Valentines) before anyone realized there was a threat nearby. Not even Callum Valentine was too troublesome, for she knew she could defeat him if she was forced to fight him.

The _problem_ was that after almost two weeks of watching her target she had yet to see her alone, because even when she was _sleeping_ there was someone around.

The target was rude, cold, distant, hateful and overall apparently annoyed by everyone around her, even her Guardians, and yet they were always watching over her.

It was inconvenient.

There was simply no way that she could get to the target without having to get past her Guardians, and she was supposed to leave them alive even though it would've been easier and simply more convenient if she could just kill them. Why her King wanted her to avoid collaterals was completely beyond her – maybe He desired to leave them unhurt as a message to God, to show the Holy Father that His loyal subjects could get to anyone under God's protection without anyone realizing?

If she thought about it, that was perhaps the reason she'd been assigned this mission – because she had a record of always sticking to the mission parameters, taking only three of the one hundred and fifty-two _ishva_ she'd been granted during her long career (a fact she was rather proud of). She didn't really need the permits, not when the parameters were so easy for her to work with.

She was currently huddled atop a tree on the back of the West property, with only Harris in sight, while she could sense Valentine's aura by the front and Shapiro further away. If she attacked now, none of them would get to her in time to stop her – _if_ they even manage to feel the attack, which she sincerely doubted.

This was the best scenario she'd faced in the time she'd been observing, with the Guardians growing sloppier as time passed, and she knew herself enough to know that her frustration was close to making her forget the importance of stealth. True she still had a week before her deadline, but did she want to risk her impulsiveness getting the better of her and making her barge in to kill everyone?

There were strict mission parameters on her orders, and a mass assassination was allowed only by a shameful _ishva_.

No, it was better to attack now.

She'd long judged that, if she was to attack while her target was inside this building, the back was the best entry – there was a glass door, ridiculously easy to open with magic, and according to her studies of the property while it was empty the stairs to the second floor and the target's quarters were close by.

She didn't need to move to search for another way to enter the house, but _this_ entry left the problem of Harris. Of course, Rivot could knock him out without anyone noticing, though she'd have to use a well-placed hit to the back of his head instead of risking any spell – she wasn't certain as to their sensitivity to active magic (she'd only needed the files to know they were almost useless at scanning their surroundings for immortals), so she'd been avoiding any usage since her arrival just in case. Now was _really_ not the time to flaunt her magic.

As to what she would do with the target... Rivot scowled in annoyance.

She was perfectly aware that the best route was to take a knife to the target's body, thus staging a robbery gone wrong as she'd done several times. That, however, would require intervention from a Handler team to set the scene and plant evidence, which was _not_ an option for several reasons – not the least of which was the fact that she'd need to use her _ishva_.

Therefore, she would have to stick closely to her parameters and stage a natural death.

Sighing quietly, Rivot took a cheap, small writing pad out of her pocket and flipped to the back for her notes on the target.

It didn't take her long to find the notes she'd made on the target's health and bloodline quirks, and what she saw made her eyes light up in satisfaction – there was a history of propensity to heart attacks at a young age on her sire's ancestry. Inducing a heart attack was ridiculously easy, especially in humans, which was making Rivot's mission all the easier.

She only had to wait for the perfect moment to knock Harris out, sneak into the building, make her way to the target's quarters and cast a simple spell to make her heart give out.

Just as she was starting to get comfortable for the wait, her blood thrumming with the thrill of an upcoming kill, the Guardian yawned – and she froze, because _really_? How could God hope for his Guardians to protect humans if they suffered from a flaw as pathetic as showing tiredness on the job?

There was a _reason_ why the Devil always got His way in the end, she thought with slight annoyance as she prepared to cast the simplest spell on her repertoire to make the Guardian fall asleep. Demons needed their sleep just as Angels and Humans did, true, but they could easily go a few days without sleeping (evolution at its finest) _and_ Assassins trained themselves to last _longer_.

During the twelve days she'd been on Earth, she'd only needed to take a short nap once, three days ago, and she'd waited until the Guardians and her target were away before making sure she was perfectly hidden and closing her eyes.

 _This_ was so completely unprofessional it made Rivot almost irrationally angry, and she sneered at him for a moment as she contemplated whether leaving this sorry excuse for a Guardian alive was really worth not using her _ishva_.

She'd only be doing everyone a favor, really.

In the end, she mentally sighed and dropped the idea, because incompetent Guardians only made the Assassins' jobs easier.

She waited for the Guardian to yawn again, and not a minute later she was calmly opening the door to her target's quarters.

Rivot stepped into the room, unconsciously not making any noise (practice made perfect, after all, and she'd had _a lot_ of practice sneaking around unnoticed in the almost eleven years she'd been an Assassin), and took a quick look around – mostly to make sure there were no hidden surprises, which she honestly doubted seeing Harris' incompetence, but also with a small amount of curiosity about the teenage girl who required three Guardians and had a Kalaus after her head.

Part of her was reluctantly impressed, and she faintly thought that _this_ was one kind of decoration she wouldn't mind having in her quarters if she ever considered bothering to show that someone lived there. The style was reminiscent of Raikai's quarters at Konlai Manor, which was perhaps part of the reason she would consider decorating her quarters this way.

She quickly spotted the target sleeping with her back to the door and walked closer, noting how nothing on the target pointed at her even subconsciously realizing that there was a predator in the room.

Rivot allowed herself to sigh, again disappointed at humanity, and raised her left hand with the correct seal at the ready and a spell on her lips.

She was paralyzed. Her magic wouldn't move. But this wasn't an immortal's work.

Next thing she knew, a strong hand clasped her shoulder and an unknown magic sucked her into darkness.

–o–

_**May 15, 2010. Shaytan Palace, Tartarus.** _

The first thing Rivot was aware of when she regained consciousness was a sharp pain in her side, followed closely by the sensation of cold obsidian floor under her limp body and cuffs around her wrists and ankles, joined by a chain. Before she could gather her bearings, someone roughly grabbed her and twisted her body until she was kneeling on the floor, her hands kept behind her back and hands grabbing her shoulders, and her head kept down by a painful grip on her hair.

Rivot attempted to shift, but one of the hands on her body left long enough to deliver a potent hit to her temple before returning to bury its nails on the back of her head.

"That's enough" someone ordered sharply, and she almost recoiled at how _familiar_ that voice sounded.

"Yes, it is quite enough" another spoke up, harsh and cold. "You failed Us, von Gieri. You were unable to complete your mission – worse, you _chose_ to let your target live. What do you have to say in your defense?"

"I– I beg Your pardon, Your Majesty," she said, feeling her blood run cold at the knowledge that she was being held like a criminal in front of the King of Tartarus, "but I don't understand the accusation. I was going to–"

"Do not lie to Us, Assassin!" Lucifer interrupted her with a booming voice. "We know everything, and you are guilty of one of the worst crimes Our servants can commit!"

She paled, terrified and confused and ashamed and in pain, and gulped in a futile attempt to alleviate her dry throat. "Your Majesty, please, I do not understand..."

Rivot could almost _feel_ His sneer, and she inwardly recoiled as her words trailed off.

"Be that as it may" He said after a pause. "You were unable to complete the mission assigned to you, and if it happened once you are likely to fail Us again. You cannot be spared the punishment you deserve for your failure just because you were likely to be the most powerful of Our Assassins within the next year and one of Our most trusted lieutenants within the next three."

Her eyes grew wide at that, and she was conscious of eight people shuffling and murmuring close by – the six Knights, surely, plus likely the pair of Enforcers holding her. Still, she couldn't blame them, being very much confused herself.

 _I was on the path to be the Kalaus matriarch and possibly a Knight of Darkness before turning eighteen years?_ , she thought, feeling faint.

That was such a shock that she couldn't even begin to feel offended that her King had uttered the words she most hated to be said about her – _likely to fail_.

"Your Majesty," the Knight who spoke first stepped forward, kneeling between Rivot and the dais and lowering his head, "please forgive my indiscretion, but I would beg you to think this carefully. To lose such a talented young Assassin..."

"Are you defying Our command, Lord Mias?"

Rivot gulped, and a part of her she'd thought long lost begged the man to stop talking, because their King's voice had taken on a dangerous edge and she didn't want him to be punished for defending her – not when King Lucifer was already convinced of her guilt.

"No, Your Majesty," the Knight answered quickly, "I would never think of doing so. I was merely speaking my mind on what we believe would be a better idea."

"And what would that be?"

"The punishment on chapter 9, article 3, paragraph 9 of the Old Code, Your Majesty. It remains in force after You ordered the new laws."

Rivot tensed up, as she ignored the contents of the law that had ruled over Tartarus for close to seven thousand years (that was a document which only the Primordial Sphere had access to, not even the Kalaus having authority to even look at the scroll) and having that Code hang over her head now was... unsettling.

She didn't like to feel unsettled.

Lucifer stayed silent for a long moment. "Are you alone in this, or do any of Our Knights agree that Rivot von Gieri should be judged by the old laws?"

Rivot couldn't see them, but she could hear the remaining Knights kneeling behind her.

"For all that is worth, we do, Your Majesty" a female Knight assured him.

Lord Mias spoke again. "If she is talented enough to become a Knight before leaving her teen years when no one has achieved our positions before being at least twenty-five years older... well, I do believe she might be one of the most powerful Demons that Tartarus has ever seen."

"We don't believe it wise to punish her by the new laws, Your Majesty, not when it could mean losing her to Heaven" another Knight pointed out.

Rivot frowned at the floor, insulted that someone would think that she'd ally herself with the greatest enemy of her people and confused as to _why_ a Demon (let alone her) would ever do _that_ , but saw that at least they were supporting a softer punishment and so decided to remain silent.

Lucifer didn't speak for long minutes. Rivot, already terrified, grew more and more nervous by the second – He was the only being in all three worlds who could scare her, which was really basic common sense, but still she would never let it show.

She wasn't weak.

But she did tremble when her King finally spoke again.

"Very well then. Considering your advice, We shall decide. Rivot von Gieri," he talked at her, and the Enforcer holding her head pushed it further down, "for the breach of your sworn duties, you are sentenced..."


	7. Days of turmoil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be longer and include the rest of the original Chapter 6, but... the author does love to go on tangents.

_**May 16, 2010. Yamalia, Russia.** _

Everything was cold around her, almost colder than the Northern Mountains where she spent the first part of her life.

From horizon to horizon, a thick white blanket made of snow and ice covered absolutely everything, with the handful of trees in sight frozen solid, dead already if they didn't adapt like the flora of the Mountains.

Rivot sat up, feeling quite dizzy, and clutched at her head with numb fingers as she tried to make sense of things.

So she'd been punished for a crime she didn't understand – but if Lucifer said so then she _must_ have been guilty of something, perhaps a law so rarely broken she'd forgotten it even existed. She didn't know the extent of her sentence, but seeing as this air felt disgustingly Earthly (something that the Tartarus aura clinging to every Demon had prevented every time she'd been here) then she was probably banished.

Part of her broke at the thought, and without her realizing her hand rose to her neck, clutching Raikai's promise as if it might keep her grounded – as if it still had any meaning now that she was a– a _**Zkhoerjae**_.

As if he wouldn't throw his away when he heard of her banishment, denying of any relation to her.

Her fingers barely had any sensation, which a quick examination blamed on cold-induced numbness, and she took a shaky breath before (with no little difficulty) forming a handseal.

Seconds later, a pulse of magic left her body and she felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the circle of less-freezing climate that rose around her.

She hadn't lost her magic.

With feeling coming back to her hands, she quickly set up a small fire and conjured a low rock to sit on, allowing herself to be warmed up.

_Much better._

Rivot held her hands in front of the fire and frowned, considering her future – if she even had one, considering...

She wasn't sure where she was, other than _probably very far north_ , and to be honest she didn't much care. Her life, as she saw it, was over the moment Lucifer expelled her from Tartarus and the bright future she once had, result of all her efforts, was gone. Over a decade of restless training, countless days and nights spent studying and training, bracing herself to become the best Assassin that Tartarus had to offer, an Assassin that her King could be satisfied with, to prove that her Master's crimes had nothing to do with who she was– all her _life_ , thrown away.

And she didn't even know _why_.

For the first time since she was six years old and excluded from most circles of acquaintances she once had in Tartarus due to her Master's faults, she felt truly _enraged_. She felt the rush in her blood, that genetic memory inherited from generations and generations of Assassin ancestors, urging her to end a life so that hers could find some balance, some calm, some thrill.

She really, _really_ wanted to kill someone. Preferably immortal, though she wouldn't turn her nose if the opportunity came to destroy a Human or ten.

She'd spent her life suppressing that urge so as to be the perfect Demon under Lucifer's command, but– now she didn't have a _reason_ to not let go.

Now, she wasn't bound to His will, so she could do _whatever she wanted_ , up to and including massacring cities if she so wanted to, without Him punishing her. He couldn't punish her anymore, now that He'd expelled her.

Shaking her head, Rivot sighed in discomfort and fingered the comforting material of Raikai's promise as she looked around, trying to decide where she should go now. She'd rather a big, crowded city, somewhere she could relax her inhibitions and do whatever she wanted without raising too many eyebrows at an unexplainable spree of what Humans considered crime.

She was fairly certain that if she set her path southwards then she would inevitably stumble upon some form of Human civilization at some point, but she wasn't really looking forward to an undefinably long trek through the middle of nowhere.

Knowing that her best bet was to use her magic to scan her surroundings for life, she quickly went through the seals and murmured a spell– and she tensed, because she was feeling an extremely small source of magic far to her back, just outside the range she could normally feel without trying too much, and it was moving in her direction.

Then she relaxed, because that was the only source of life and surely she could handle such a weak Fallen Demon.

As the Fallen came closer she could sense more details about their aura – an Assassin, definitely, strong enough to belong to a low-rank even though it was really old, stale, as if the owner hadn't allowed their magic to breathe in decades. Someone from a noble bloodline, then.

It also felt familiar, almost comforting, and she frowned as she pinpointed similarities both to her aura and to Lord Mias' own. The newcomer probably had some close relation to them, she concluded.

She stood up and turned around when she could begin to hear footsteps, her expression never faltering as she found the male figure moving slowly in her direction, covered head to toe in the ridiculous implements used by Humans to keep warm when out in the snow.

_Disgraceful_.

The man started to move faster when he realized she was looking at him, and lost his scarf and snow goggles when he entered the circle she'd spelled to be warmer.

He smiled.

"Hello" he greeted.

She studied him, too confused to feel truly wary. The man was probably in his forties, naturally tan skin with dark brown eyes (an illusion, obviously) and a hint of dark brown hair peeking under his hat. His facial features were familiar (she saw some of them in the mirror, others in Lord Mias, and others in several members of the el Svairnz bloodline), and his general body shape was almost like a younger, slightly broader Lord Mias.

The worst thing was– she didn't _know_ him, not really, but there was _something_ about him that screamed familiar, that she knew him, that she could trust him with her life if needed.

(The latter was perhaps the most disturbing sensation, as the only one she truly trusted was her promised, and _that_ had taken knowing him almost her entire life and having a level of intimacy neither of them shared with anyone else.)

"Who are you?" she asked, not having to pretend she was feeling suspicious – if anything, she was concealing how much.

"I'm David Vega– well, that's the Human name I took when I was expelled. I don't really remember my birth name anymore."

She studied him cautiously. "You betrayed Lucifer on your first assignment."

"I did."

"What are you doing here?"

"I came for you. I've been waiting fifteen years to meet you – or, actually, since before you were born. What name were you given?"

She frowned at him. "I'm Rivot von Gieri, and how exactly do you know my age?"

He smiled broadly. "Because I'm your father, Rivot. I, and the rest of our family, are very excited to know that you are finally here, with us."

"I'm unused to those terms. Father and family, I mean" she admitted grudgingly.

She felt... unpleasantly lost, something she hadn't felt since her Master betrayed Lucifer, and she _hated_ the feeling for all the bad childhood memories it brought up – which weren't few.

David blinked slowly. "You... don't use those words back there?"

"Why would we? Blood ties, which is what I'm understanding those are, aren't anything relevant among Assassins, not beyond the status that can be gained through one's ancestry. Blood ties don't stop anyone from turning their backs on each other easily, so why should they actually matter?"

He stared, seemingly at an absolute loss for words, and it took him a long moment to reply.

"Look, Rivot, we aren't temporary. In Tartarus, Assassins won't hesitate to turn against each other because they do whatever they need in order to be better in Lucifer's eyes, right? But _we_ aren't under his will anymore – not even you, even if that can be hard to understand right now.

"You're finally free, now, too. Can't you see that? You don't have to follow his orders anymore. We're here to help you get through this, to help you start as normal a life as possible in this world. We're related by blood, not by power, and we're _free_."

Rivot blinked and frowned. This was... a little too much to take in all of a sudden, not that she'd admit it, but it made an odd sort of sense. And she wasn't easy to fool, so this man was either completely sincere or a masterful liar.

"Who are you to me, then?" she asked in a low voice.

He smiled. "I think that the word you use is 'sire' – the man who provided his bloodline for you to exist."

She nodded slowly, part of her mind noting how oddly not disappointed she was to know that this man was her sire – her _father_ , apparently, if she used human vocabulary.

"And this– this _family_..."

"Your mother, your sister, your uncle, your aunt and your cousin – all of us Fallen Demons. I'll explain what each of them are to us, but first... can you trust me, Rivot? Would you come back home with me?"

The young Kalaus ( _former_ Kalaus, now) opened her mouth and closed it again. "I can't be sure" she murmured, frowning. "I don't know you, so how can I know you're being sincere?"

"Because you can sense it, can't you? You can sense that I'm a Fallen, that I've been here for years, and I suppose you can probably also sense that I'm not lying. It's all in you, Rivot– you already know how to judge someone trustworthy."

She nodded slowly in confirmation, though it wasn't a question, and considered him for a minute. "You believe you're being honest, at least," she said softly, "but I'm not sure if I can really trust you. Not now. But maybe... maybe I can, someday."

He smiled at her. "I understand that you're not ready yet. But it can be built, right? Trust."

Rivot exhaled a breath as her frown relaxed, but she kept her magic in guard. One can never be too cautious, yes?

_But,_ she thought, accepting the hand that her... _father_ was offering to guide her home, _maybe he isn't trying to fool me. Maybe this won't be as completely terrible as I thought it would be._

–o–

_**May 20, 2010. California, USA** _

The Vega Sanctuary, where Rivot's _family_ had established their household a decade before her arrival – around the same time that her older _sister_ , Trina, was also expelled from Tartarus.

Rivot had felt a strange, impossibly powerful rush of familiarity when she first met Trina, after teleporting herself and their _father_ back to the United States (since it wasn't really safe for her to move out in the open just yet – not to mention that she still didn't have papers to prove her existence to the Humans and she couldn't openly move between nations _without_ those papers), but she hadn't taken the time to try and figure out _why_.

No, she'd been entirely too overwhelmed, smothered by Earth's disgustingly sweet air, shaken by the realization that this was _real_ , that _she wasn't a true Demon anymore_ , that she'd lost _everything_ –

The moment she stepped into the Sanctuary was too much, too painful, too _soon_ , and she'd hung around long enough to tensely greet her _mother_ and her _sister_ before retreating into the bedchamber her _family_ had prepared for her.

She was very grateful that the bedchamber was simple, austere, almost impersonal – it was a small relief to see something close to what she'd grown used to in Tartarus, but it was still enough to make her silently refuse to leave.

Rivot would admit to spending a lot of her time sleeping, her body straining to keep up with the requirements that the aura of her new surroundings was forcing out of her. The change wouldn't have been as hard for them, perhaps a few days of feeling moderately tired and uncomfortable, but for her it was positively painful.

She'd been in Tartarus long enough for its aura and its magic to form thick layers around hers, clinging to her with iron claws and barbed chains, seeping so deeply into her sense of self that it was impossible to say where her individuality ended and her connection to King Lucifer started. Her actions during her career had only enhanced this connection, as she'd always directed her magic and her purpose towards honoring her oaths and being a faithful servant and His domain's aura, already sentient after close to ten thousand years of Him being King, had stirred at her intent and gleefully sunk its hooks into her welcoming soul.

That connection had provided her with very much needed comfort during some of the most difficult periods of her life. It'd been a silent supporter whenever someone spoke against her, her most faithful companion, a warm threat, a constant judge.

Tartarus had approved of her and Raikai's promise – _encouraged_ it, even, if the pleasantly charged air whenever they were together (something neither of them felt with anyone else) was any indication.

(Tartarus did that, sometimes, whenever a particular pairing would give birth to inordinately strong Demons. From her studies, Rivot was moderately certain that several of the Demons that rose from their bloodline's usual occupations were the result of those pairs.

It was part of the reason why Rivot and Raikai had entered their promise so young.)

Her connection to Tartarus had been her _everything_ , and losing that, having it ripped so violently from her, had left her gasping and bleeding and barely able to function, shuddering every time the slightest breeze touched the gaping holes that'd been left behind when Tartarus was taken from her.

She _desperately_ needed to rest, spend as little energy as possible in order to allow her body to patch itself up as much as possible.

(But she'd never be whole again – Tartarus had been a very important part of her being for fifteen years, and nothing could possibly replace that, especially after losing it so violently.)

It never crossed her mind to communicate with anyone – in Tartarus, they didn't often go out of their ways to speak to others unless there was a need to, and so it was completely natural that she'd just shut herself off in her bedchamber without saying a word, much in the same way as she'd done her whole life.

Her _family_ had taken it in stride, coming into her bedchamber a few times a day to leave food for her – always when she was sleeping, something she was _very_ grateful for because she didn't think she would feel anything but uncomfortable if she was forced to interact with them inside the walls that encased her refuge.

This room was decided to be _hers_ , a place for her to retreat and be alone whenever things became too much to handle, and it was... nice to know that they were making an effort to help her get used to the idea, and respecting the fact that she needed a space that could be _hers_.

It was the evening of her fifth day on Earth when she decided to leave her bedchamber, taking with her the empty tray that'd held her lunch.

A few steps from the stairs, her eyes fell on a photograph hanging from the wall and she froze before slowly moving closer.

The picture showed a couple smiling broadly, sitting together on a couch, the woman heavily pregnant and the man visibly vibrating. Nothing too strange, but then the picture next to that– it showed the same couple, looking as if they'd aged a decade in a year, the woman pregnant again but barely showing and both of them looking broken... as if they knew they should feel excited but physically unable to feel anything but fear.

That was...

"It's amazing how much can change in a year" a voice spoke behind her.

It took all Rivot had in her to not whirl around at the unexpected sound, but she still looked over her shoulder at her _sister_ , who was standing in the doorway to her own bedchamber and looking at the pictures briefly before turning her eyes to Rivot.

"What do you mean?"

Trina shrugged, a little withdrawn from the person Rivot had met days ago, and walked closer until they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the pictures.

"This picture–" she said, pointing at the image of the excited couple "– is from when mom was pregnant with me. Neither knew the other was a Demon back then, so it was a big surprise when a Demon kidnapped mom from the hospital while she was giving birth and returned her immediately after I'd been born. Then, when they learnt she was pregnant with you, they already knew what was going to happen. They already knew that you were going to be born in Hell, and that you wouldn't come back to them unless you chose to turn your back on that path."

She was gently tapping the glass of the second picture at that point, making Rivot frown. That... explained how she'd been born in Tartarus despite the fact that both her progenitors were Fallen Demons, something that the Grandparents at the orphanage couldn't and her books never bothered to explain.

"It was hard for them" Trina continued after a moment of silence, oblivious to Rivot's hands tightening their hold on the tray. "They haven't said it, but they were close to divorcing after they lost me, and I think things were strained up until I came back. It's in their pictures – they don't look as close those years."

"Divorcing?"

"Separating, splitting up, breaking their marriage."

"Marriage?"

"Couple acknowledged by the authorities and society in general. Man and woman, generally – same-sex marriages aren't allowed everywhere."

"It's possible to break that bond?"

"Some countries allow it, like here, but others don't. It depends, really – but even when it's not allowed, couples can separate in fact if not in paper. How do things work down there?"

Rivot frowned. "Two Demons of similar status promise to bond together and procreate. The promise has to be held for at least two years before they bond, and while the promise can be broken off within the first year the bond can't be broken even with the death of either party. Having a child with someone you're not bonded with is a mark of shame, and betraying your bonded by having a child with someone else can see you become a pariah."

"A bit like here, then, but probably not as bad."

"Aren't people monogamous here?"

"Well, yes."

"Then it's not all that similar."

Trina blinked slowly at her, seeming surprised. Rivot had to look away, starting to feel uncomfortable at the attention and what she could swear was something like realization dawning on her eyes.

She didn't realize when one of her hands left the tray to touch Raikai's promise, but Trina did.

"What's that?"

Rivot dropped her hand. "Nothing."

"Hey, come on, you can tell me. You don't have to, of course," she quickly added, "but if you ever want to talk... I'm here for you, okay?"

Rivot looked back at Trina, evaluating her for a long moment, until she finally whirled back to the stairs.

"Some other day, maybe" she muttered as she left.

She pretended to ignore the look that appeared on her _sister_ 's face and moved downstairs, followed by Trina after a few moments.

Their _mother_ was lounging on the couch, gaze set intently on the strange apparatus that most households on Earth seemed to have, but she took her eyes away to smile at them as Rivot took the tray to the kitchen.

Before Rivot could feel too uncomfortable (she'd seen that expression several times, but never on Demons and never directed at _her_ ), the door opened and her _father_ came into the house, carrying a folder with him.

Greetings were exchanged (mumbled and distant in Rivot's case, of course), and then her _father_ walked to the kitchen and set the folder on the table.

"Are those...?"

"Yeah, we only need the name and we can turn these in" he nodded at her _mother_ 's question. "So, Rivot? I was thinking that maybe you'd like to have a say in your new name?"

A small part of Rivot that she hadn't realized had tensed up when she first saw Trina today relaxed when she noticed they weren't going to make a big issue of her being out of her bedchamber. Still, she frowned at the bowl in her hands, because did it really matter?

"I don't care" she said aloud, turning her back at the rest of the room to drop the things on the sink. "It's just a name."

"You're going to have to use it for the rest of your life" Trina insisted, bouncing up at her. "Well, you _could_ change it eventually, I guess, but why bother if you have the chance to choose now?"

"I'm not familiar with how do Earthlings name their young."

Trina seemed to realize that this (Rivot feeling lost and disoriented, and hating the feeling, and growing tense and progressively snappish) was going to become a trend if someone didn't mediate, offer solutions, constantly help her understand. Rivot was too proud to accept the fact that she _needed_ help, and she wouldn't admit to it under pain of death, but she was glad that someone was willing to step up and fill that role without making a big deal about it.

"Well, how about you just use the name they would've given you if they'd kept you? That's what I did" she said brightly.

Rivot kept her eyes on the empty glass for a moment. Finally, she shrugged, not really seeing anything wrong with that but too stubborn to admit that a Fallen Demon could have a good idea.

(She would have to change that, now that she... now that she was one of them.)

"I suppose. What name would that be?"

She felt her _parents_ startle at that, though she didn't acknowledge it. She didn't even turn around when her _mother_ spoke.

"Well, we– never really settled on a name– not when we knew that–"

"That Tartarus would claim me as one of its own."

"... Exactly. But... we did discuss what we'd like to name you, if we could keep you with us."

"And that was?"

"Victoria."

Rivot frowned and rolled the word around her mind for a moment, comparing it to her vast knowledge of the Ancient language in order to understand its meaning – supposing that this was indeed a name with some meaning.

_From the Human dialect known as Spanish, part of the Latin languages, spoken originally in part of the Iberian peninsula with the majority of current speakers being inhabitants of the Americas. The word, which translates to English as "victory", expresses the act of defeating an opponent in any form of competition, making it the Human equivalent of the Ancient word "edrivoth", from which the name "Rivot" is derived._

She slowly rose an eyebrow, surprised despite herself at what could only be a coincidence – so her progenitors had wanted to give her basically the same name she'd been given in Tartarus? That was the kind of occurrence that rarely happened more than once a millennia.

But... if one ignored the vastly different languages, taking that name would be as if she was still using the one she currently had, the name she'd grown so used to it almost pained her to let go of it. It was small, but a grounding point for her nonetheless, and she couldn't bring herself to reject that comfort.

So she accepted, and just like that, the next day she was officially Victoria Vega.

–o–

_**May 26, 2010. California, USA.** _

Andre Harris grinned when he turned the corner of Beck Oliver's street and saw his friends already waiting for him up front, chatting lightly and teasing each other mercilessly – probably poking fun at Beck for his crush on the other three's Guarded.

Three years ago, he never would've imagined that he'd get along with a Demon, certainly not enough to go to his house, but here he was now. It helped that Beck had been living on Earth for a decade now and that he'd never hurt anyone, true, but still, willingly going to a Sanctuary was... something else.

He knew his family worried, sometimes, that he was friends with a Fallen Demon, but... he really didn't see an issue.

(Whenever his family "subtly" expressed their worries, he bullshitted his way out by claiming that he only hung around Beck because his Guarded, Jade, was friends with him. Which was true at first, but not anymore.)

Not that he could realistically think of Beck Oliver, of all people, as a threat – not when he was as calm and polite as a stereotypical Canadian.

"Hey, guys!" he called when he was within earshot.

His friends answered with varying degrees of excitement, and Andre didn't miss the way that Beck was more subdued than usual.

"So, you said you had something important to tell us?" he said lightly as he slowed to a stop.

Beck sighed. "Yeah. Come on, let's talk inside."

He guided them into the Sanctuary in silence, closing the door behind them slowly once Robbie had wandered inside. Still he stayed by the entrance, twisting his hands together in a show of nerves they hadn't seen of him before – not even when they opened their Hollywood Arts letters to know whether they'd been accepted or not.

"What's up, Beck?" Andre asked.

Their friend sighed and sat on the edge of the free couch.

"I... I know I never really talk about stuff, but I actually have family other than my parents. Dad has a sister, you know, and she's married to another of our kind. They live here in LA too, actually."

Cat frowned, seemingly trying to figure out who he was talking about, but Andre felt like he already knew the answer. Before he could reach it, however, Robbie spoke up.

"You're related to the Vegas?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, that's kinda weird, but why are you telling us about them now?"

"That's because... well, my cousin, Trina, is already a student at HA, so, you know, we'll go to school with her. Also... look, we don't want any trouble. None of us do. But... a little over a week ago, my younger cousin was kicked out of Hell."

"Alright, so there's a new Fallen around, but I don't see why there'd be trouble" Andre pointed out.

Beck's knuckles became white, so hard he was fisting his hands atop his knees. "That's... because she's fifteen. As far as we can tell, she... she was an Assassin."

Andre tensed, noticing how the other Guardians did as well.

"What do you want us to do, Beck?" Cat asked in a soft voice that did wonders to hide her tension.

"Just... please don't start a fight with her. Whatever she's done, she was just following orders."

"She's an Assassin!"

"WAS!" the young Fallen barked back, jumping to his feet to glare down at the trio of Guardians. "She WAS an Assassin! She didn't know any better – she didn't really have a choice!"

The trio eyed him warily, suddenly reminded that their friend was a Demon, even if he hadn't lived as one for almost nine years.

It was easy to forget that Beck was actually a Fallen Demon, that he had lived in Hell for the first part of his life – but he was glaring at them now, as if the sole force of his stare and his scowl would strike them down, sneering with a disdain they had never seen on their normally calm friend.

It definitely _wasn't_ a look they felt comfortable seeing on him.

Robbie attempted to calm him down. "Beck..."

"Shut up" he snarled, his eyes flashing red briefly – the first time they'd ever seen his actual eyes. "It's so easy for you _perfect_ Angels to judge us, because you don't know _shit_ about us, about the way Tartarus runs– because you don't know the things we're threatened with if we step one inch out of line! We can be _tortured_ for not following orders!"

"Beck! We didn't–"

"Of course you didn't know, and that's the fucking problem here! You didn't want to know, because that would mean acknowledging that your _perfect_ Father lies to you!"

"Don't you dare talk about the Father like that!"

"I'll talk however I like about that–!"

"Beck. That's enough."

Everyone whirled around to look in the direction of the new voice, quickly finding its source standing quietly just next to the kitchen door.

The Guardians were surprised at how– _normal_ she looked. The newcomer, Beck's cousin most likely, was a teenage girl of average height, athletic build and Latin features, with matching tanned skin and chocolate-brown eyes. Her clothes were simple yet functional (jean shorts, plain black t-shirt and bare feet) and her hair was cut short and tinted black and silver.

She seemed incredibly bored – understandable, since they were in a Sanctuary and she _knew_ she was safe there, regardless of the three Guardians staring tensely at her.

"Tori."

She nodded at him and looked back at his friends, a slight sneer pulling at her lips. "Is this why you and mother insisted I come here today?"

"They aren't here to hurt you" Beck quickly spoke up, moving to stand between her and the Guardians. "They're– they're my friends, and I don't want any problems between you."

She scoffed. "They wouldn't manage to hurt me if they tried."

"Tori–"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cat jumped in, looking appropriately affronted. Andre didn't blame her – he was also feeling insulted.

The girl slowly raised an eyebrow. "Exactly what I said. You couldn't stop me when I tried to kill your Guarded, so what's to say you would manage to touch me when I _wasn't_ threatening your jobs?"

Beck paled. "Wait, that was your last mission? But... if they didn't stop you, then how..."

She gave everyone in the room a single unimpressed stare. "Because King Lucifer ordered the Enforcers to pull me from the mission before I could complete it. Hadn't He done that, West would be dead."

Tori shrugged. "Regardless, it doesn't interest me to attack anyone, now that I'm not bound by my oaths. So long as they don't attack first, there is no reason for me to harm them."

Andre's jaw tightened at the obvious slights to their skills and felt his power bubble underneath his skin, but he slammed a tight lid on his emotions before they could manipulate his power and cause an incident.

_Trying_ to use immortal power inside a Sanctuary was heavily punished, even if by accident, and Andre knew that Heaven wouldn't be lenient with a nameless Guardian like him if he broke the Law.

Before he could decide he didn't give a damn about the potential consequences, Tori shrugged again and moved to the stairs.

"Well, if that's all, I'll be in your room until mother comes for me. It wasn't nice to meet you, Valentine, Shapiro, Harris.

"Oh, and Beck? If this is the kind of people you spend your free time with... I'm not impressed."

With that, she moved swiftly to the upper floor, a door clicking open and closed just moments later as she left the quiet quartet in the living room. It took almost eight minutes until someone spoke again.

"And you want us to get along with _her_?" Andre asked, his voice strained.

Beck winced. "Yeah... maybe I didn't think that one through."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funnily enough, it wasn't until the rewriting process that the author realised that the characters were fifteen at the time they first met and therefore, to the author's understanding, not old enough to drive yet.
> 
> Also: Raikai van Groumn wasn't inserted with more protagonism here than in the original for no reason. Some important emotional growth in Tori involves her previous relationship to him.


	8. Rise of the fallen

_**October 01, 2011. California, USA.** _

It was nearly two in the afternoon when Trina wandered up the stairs searching for her sister, as Tori had failed to answer the five times she'd shouted at her from the first floor asking what she wanted to get for lunch.

The door to her bedroom was closed, as was usual with Tori, and she knocked on the wood lightly, assuming she must've been studying or something – Tori was surprisingly responsible for someone who frequently claimed not to care about school, but Trina supposed it was just another quirk leftover from her time in Hell.

For a long minute there was no answer, and when she knocked more resolutely and _still_ didn't hear her sister's voice Trina frowned slightly, confused and admittedly a bit worried.

Well, worried enough to twist the doorknob without having been allowed to first, which went against anything that the other Vegas had been doing since Tori came to live with them. Trina felt just a little guilty for disregarding Tori's privacy for all of five seconds – the time it took her to spot Tori sitting at the foot of her bed, staring at her phone with unseeing eyes.

"Tori?" Trina called, frown deepening.

Her younger sister blinked and twisted her head just slightly, eyes flickering to her and back at the phone in her hands. "Hey, Trina."

"Are you okay?"

Tori opened her mouth, probably to answer in the affirmative as she most often did whenever presented with that question, but snapped it closed again after a moment and pursed her lips before shaking her head.

"I don't know."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

The younger Fallen hesitated, as she _always_ did when Trina asked her that. She was a little predictable, sometimes.

"It's... It's about Jade."

"Ah."

Tori's lips quirked upwards in a gesture that wasn't quite a smile, being a little too bitter and sad to qualify as that. "Yeah."

"What did she do now?"

"What? She didn't– Why must you always assume that she's done something?" Tori complained.

"Because she usually _does_. I mean, not _exactly_ , I guess, but you have a completely unexplainable crush on her so you're always more affected by whatever mean thing she's said or done."

Perhaps Trina's first red light should've been that Tori didn't loudly deny that she had a crush on Hollywood Art's resident Queen Bitch, but she was entirely too worried about the uncharacteristically withdrawn attitude her sister was projecting to notice.

Tori sighed deeply and carefully deposited her phone on the bed next to her.

"She didn't do anything. It's... it's just me."

"Okay? What... Oh Lord. Please tell me you didn't..."

Trina's voice trailed off, part of her desperately wishing that what she feared wasn't true – because, no matter how much she teased Tori about it, she didn't _want_ her to have any kind of feelings for Jade West. Not when Jade was unapologetically rude and mean to her and literally almost everyone else, not when she was in a relationship with their cousin and _especially not_ when it was obvious that she was never going to reciprocate Tori's feelings, that she was more likely to cruelly make fun of her than she was to pretend she didn't know if she ever found out.

Every time Trina teased her sister about it, it was mostly her being annoying about Tori's obvious physical attraction to Jade, but... she'd never wanted that attraction to be anything _other_ than physical.

Tori let out a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah, I wish I could. I just– It doesn't matter, anyway. She's with Beck and– and she hates me."

"Hate's a strong word."

Tori shrugged, one hand instinctively reaching up to toy with the choker she'd worn every day for who knows how long.

"Maybe," she said softly, "but not entirely inaccurate, I think. It would be justified, anyway, since I... I did try to kill her."

"You were ordered to."

"Does it matter why I did it?"

Trina shook her head. "That's– I'm not going to argue with you about this now, Tori. But Jade– she doesn't hate you."

"Maybe not now, but she will. What I... Whatever I feel for her doesn't matter" Tori took a shuddering breath. "It never matters how I feel."

Trina frowned. "What do you mean?"

Tori's hand tightened where it rested on her bed, while the other pressed against her throat. They were quiet while Trina finally entered the room, closing the door behind her, and took post in Tori's desk chair to look directly at her sister. It took her a long moment to speak, but when she did, her voice was the softest that Trina had ever heard from her.

"I never told you about this necklace, did I?"

"No, but... it's a bit obvious that it means something important to you – I mean, you always touch it when you feel uncomfortable."

Tori looked at Trina and gave a tremulous smile. "Yeah, it's... it was important. It's... tangible proof of my most significant relationship before coming here."

"A lover?"

Tori hummed. "This necklace is... sort of like an engagement ring. We would've bonded next month. I..." she trailed off, hesitated, and finally spoke so weakly that Trina had difficulty to catch her words. "Our relationship was very physical, you know?, but it still meant the world to us. We were each other's first time with– with everything. It was... sort of an open relationship – he had his items on the side and I had mine, but still we gravitated to each other most of the time.

"Raikai was– he was _everything_ to me" she murmured, looking down. "He made me feel _normal_ , like there was nothing wrong with me, because there couldn't be if someone cared about me after all, and I... I made him feel like he was _important_ , like someone cared about him, like it didn't matter that everyone else from his bloodline ignored him."

"You loved him."

Tori laughed bitterly, and fuck, it was the most heartbreaking sound Trina had ever heard. "I wouldn't know about that. Love isn't exactly the kind of emotion that registers anywhere on an Assassin's vocabulary. No, regardless of what we meant to each other, what we had was... it was physical comfort and power plays. Of all the people I interacted with that way, he was the closest to my level, and I lived for the satisfaction of knowing I was superior in every way that mattered and the thrill of proving myself better. The fact that we would've been friends or possibly more if we understood emotions and relationships doesn't matter."

Trina didn't think that was completely true – the way she spoke of her ex-fiancé dripped with affection, even if later it was filled with bitterness and distance, and she doubted someone could speak of a lover like that and claim they hadn't felt anything for them.

But Tori didn't need to hear that, not when she was already facing heartbreak over her feelings for Jade, not when acknowledging that she'd likely loved this Raikai guy would only add to her pain.

"Besides," Tori added, her tone turning even more bitter and eyes turning down, "I'm sure he burned his own necklace as soon as he heard I'd been expelled."

"And why haven't you?"

"Because... because up until last night I wasn't sure if I was even on the way to getting over things, _him_ included. It's kind of fucking hard to let go if I was still trying to figure out _what_ I was actually letting go of in the first place."

Trina narrowed her eyes. "Last night? What did you do, Tori?"

The younger sister winced, as if just realizing what she'd said. That, or she'd hoped that Trina wouldn't pick up on that particular wording. "I... wasn't entirely honest when I said I was going out with the gang yesterday."

Tori winced again at Trina's unimpressed stare, rushing to explain herself in a truly messy jumble of words nearly impossible to break down into actual coherent speech.

If Trina was understanding correctly, the previous afternoon, after leaving school, Tori had teleported all the way to Barcelona, changed her clothes to appropriately party-like for the Spanish night scene, conjured a perfectly accurate fake ID claiming her to be twenty-two and lightly confounded a bouncer to waltz into a top-notch club settled smack in the middle of the city like she owned the damn place, managing to pick up a stranger to take back to a hotel room she'd procured earlier that night.

Tori sullenly informed her that she'd _obviously_ established herself as the dominant party _easily_ , even though the stranger was a half-Demon (part of the reason they'd instinctively gravitated to each other, even if only Tori knew about the immortal side of the world – and anyway, what were the odds of two completely unrelated people of Demonic heritage finding themselves in the same Barcelonan club at the same time?), but it hadn't really been satisfying.

"It wasn't a lack of power play – there's _always_ power play when Demons–"

"Don't you dare say the word" Trina interrupted her, not wanting to _ever_ hear the word 'sex' spoken in context to what her little sister had been getting up to – even if she'd already heard far more about Tori's sex life than she cared to know. "What was the problem, then?"

"The problem was that it felt _wrong_. I don't mean the act itself, I did enjoy that, it's just..."

" _Who_ you were with?"

Tori sighed and gripped her hands together between her knees, as if the mere idea of touching her necklace _hurt_ but knowing that she wouldn't be strong enough to avoid the reflex without some outer incentive.

"Yeah. And it's not– it's not even that she was a– a half- _blood_ , I can sort of deal with humanity now so it wouldn't make sense. But..." she sighed again. "I don't know. I guess... I guess part of me wished it was someone else, and... and that person not being Raikai... it made me realize I really feel something for Jade, which... annoys the fuck out of me, I mean, you _have_ met her."

"You don't really think that" Trina said softly, looking at her sister as she closed her eyes.

"Does it matter?" she asked, sounding impossibly tired.

"Of course it does – Tori, just because you've done horrible things in the past it doesn't mean that your feelings aren't valid."

"But that's the problem, Trina. I didn't just do horrible things, I _reveled_ in it, in the power that came with doing those things, with murdering countless people just because someone ordered me to. I'm... not the kind of person whose feelings can ever be valid."

"Tori..."

The younger Vega shook her head and shot to her feet, moving to her window. "I'm going to train you and Beck, help you have at least a fighting chance if you're ever attacked. I'll help the guys keep Jade alive, and I'm going to try and make sure that what I did to other people doesn't ever happen to her. I will keep hanging out with them because you _know_ that the Archangel assigned to this area won't tolerate it if I don't have close supervision – ineffective as it may be. But... things can't go on the same way they've been so far."

"Tori, please don't do that to yourself."

"Do what? It's not as if we're all friends like Jade believes. Beck is the only one who actually likes me, and that's just because we're cousins. Neither of us will be losing anything, and you know that Jade will be happier that I'm not around as often as I have" she concluded bitterly.

Trina tried to find something to say, something that would stop her sister from basically sabotaging the few non-familial relationships she was slowly forming, but before she could reach the words she saw her sister's hands reach behind her neck and unclasp the choker she'd worn every day for years, the proof of her former engagement to an Assassin and the one thing that, unbeknownst to anyone else, had been proof that part of her was still clinging to her life in Tartarus.

Tori stared at the choker in her hands for a long moment, breathing almost unsteadily, and then she sighed, closed her eyes and brought the odd leather band to her lips.

" _In blood may you find victory, in victory may you find honor, in honor may you find the immortality of a name. I free you from the future you promised, so that you may bring honor to your bloodline. Live well, my soul_ " she whispered.

Trina, understandably shocked about her sister's words and the way her voice broke at the end, was a little too distracted to really process that the words had been spoken in Ancient, a language she hadn't even heard since her own expulsion ages ago. Then, she was further taken from any possible musings when Tori took a deep, shuddering breath, closing her eyes tightly as if that would make the pain go away.

Several minutes (hours, days? What did time matter then, anyway?) passed by without either teen moving. Trina was almost afraid to even twitch, part of her breaking at her sister's pain even though it meant she was slowly getting used to the idea of belonging to Earth, but any choice was taken from her when Tori moved again.

Her sister straightened and lowered her hands to chest level, and without looking folded the choker with a strange mix of fear, fondness, bitterness and love, depositing it carefully on a hand-carved wooden box (one of the first things she'd done, when she'd just been expelled and was getting used to doing precise work with her hands despite the sickening press of Earth on her weakened aura) which she then tucked into her closet.

Both of them paused before Tori fully closed the door, eyes closed and head down, and neither spoke even when the older sister finally gathered her wits enough to stand up and hug Tori as tightly as she could, the younger Vega standing stiffly for a full minute before she slumped against her body, boneless and shaking with dry, silent sobs.

Later, if asked to pinpoint the exact moment their relationship shifted from forcefully familiar to fiercely sisterly, both would be hard-pressed to come up with an episode that marked them more than this one.

–o–

_**October 02, 2011. California, USA.** _

_We need to talk. Have a Valentine watch over West for a couple hours._

The text would've been cryptic no matter _who_ had sent it, but from this particular person it was also more than a bit worrying. Beck frowned at his phone even as he typed a reply confirming that he'd be over at the Vega Sanctuary soon, trying to understand why she'd send such a text at a time like this, now that she was beginning to really get used to human life and was growing more comfortable and open, now that she was warmer and closer even to the Guardians of their group.

He'd just hit sent when his phone lit up with an incoming call from the one Guardian who'd never seemed to even dislike Tori, and he answered thinking that Cat had surely thought the same.

" _Do you have any idea why she wants to see us?_ " she asked before even greeting him.

Cat was like that when Tori was involved – she always worried, always tried to help Tori feel even a little bit comfortable, never even hinted at her past or at all the reasons why they really shouldn't be friends. Cat was the only Guardian who Beck could truthfully say didn't care that some of her friends were Demons, which was a really weird but welcome change from the way most Angels treated them.

(Beck had lost count of the strangers who glared at him for no reason other than his blood before he'd even turned seven. His parents and his aunt and uncle acted as if they didn't notice anymore, but he knew that couldn't be more wrong. Trina simply ignored them as if they were beneath her notice. Tori glared back, allowing her eyes to flash red if no one was around and simply scowling menacingly otherwise.

For all of them, and he was willing to bet it was the same for all other Fallen Demons, the main reason why they would never be able to completely grow used to Earthly life wasn't the diversity of races or the fact that they had to keep quiet about their immortal heritage or that they could only use magic to hide the physical traits common to Demons, but rather the mindless hatred they'd always receive for sole reason of their birth.)

But Tori was also more comfortable with Cat, at times even more than with their family, often acting as if Cat was the only person aware of her heritage who made her feel _normal_ , like she belonged, like she hadn't spent the majority of her life serving Lucifer and killing people at his say-so. Cat had been the first person to make her smile and laugh and just act like a normal teenager, and to date she was the only one who could initiate physical contact at all times without Tori growing defensive, the only one who could pull her out of one of her moods with nothing more than a hug and an honest smile.

If Cat didn't know why Tori was acting strange now, then no one did.

"I have no idea" he confessed, grabbing his car keys. "I was hoping you'd know. You're kind of Tori's best friend."

" _As much as she can have a friend, you mean?_ "

"I'm not the guys."

Cat remained quiet for a moment. " _I know. I meant that she wouldn't admit to having friends at all, let alone to being friends with an Angel. Not that Andre or Robbie help._ "

He grunted his agreement, thinking of the many times either of the male Guardians had demonstrated the bigotry he'd come to expect from all Angels except Cat. Really, the only reason he only considered them loose friends was because he _knew_ they despised all Demons, including those in his position, even though they pretended they didn't care about his ancestry.

He knew it was more that they ignored it most of the time, which was proven by the fact that whenever they were reminded of his race they acted odd around him, uncomfortable, and later acted as if none of that had happened. It was further proven by the way they behaved around Tori, which really didn't need an explanation.

The whole thing was Holy bigotry at its finest.

Cat... Cat _really_ didn't care. She never pretended the Vega-Oliver clan weren't Demons, never ignored it whenever any of them somehow showed their true nature, never changed the way she was around them even when Tori was at her grumpiest (which was often the way she more obviously reminded everyone that she was, in fact, a Demon). She knew what they were, but she also knew _who_ they were, and never let their race be a defining factor in who they were and who they were _to her_.

Cat couldn't care less that most of her friends had Demonic blood, and though she never hid that she felt uncomfortable by the knowledge of all the things Tori had done before they met she also made sure to remind his cousin that Tori was first and foremost one of Cat's dearest friends.

Such a friend was priceless, and likely born partly of being best friends with a half-Demon her whole life and mostly through being a genuinely good person.

That was probably one of the things that was more prominent in helping Tori feel at home, and the whole reason he _knew_ that Cat was actually Tori's best friend regardless of her own acceptance of even having friends in the first place.

(Though, to be fair, considering how the rest of the group was and how Tori didn't hang out with anyone outside their little group, Cat was also probably the only friend Tori had – if one discounted Beck and Trina, who were also family.)

Beck sighed, deciding to change topic before he got into a mood. "Who's watching Jade?"

" _Andre was on shift right now. I asked my brother and he's agreed to cover for a few hours, he should be by soon._ "

"That should make them manage to be away from Jade for a while without freaking out. Do you need me to come pick you up?"

" _Please? I really don't want to deal with the guys right now._ "

Cat's words might've surprised Beck before Tori came around, but it was actually expected since she'd met the Vegas – because Cat had begun to realize how blindly prejudiced her fellow Angels truly were, and she didn't like it one bit. Sometimes, she just needed to take a step away from them, breathe deeply and remind herself _why_ she liked them.

Beck was sure that Cat's frequent subtle defense of Tori and the other Demons, how she didn't even have to go out of her way to be nice but she did anyway, was the main reason why his cousin felt more or less comfortable around her, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

He finished the conversation by telling her he'd be by in fifteen minutes as he got inside his car, smiling a little at her happy "kay kay!" and wishing he was the kind of person who could bounce back from a negative mood as quickly as Cat seemed to sometimes.

Almost too soon he and Cat were walking into the Vega Sanctuary, where Robbie and Andre were already on their usual seats and Tori was waiting by the door, which she closed while Beck and Cat moved to the couch.

There was something off about her, not only her behavior (she was taking longer than necessary to turn around), though Beck couldn't quite put his finger on _what_. Thankfully, Cat was observant enough to need less than a second to pinpoint the issue as soon as Tori was facing them again.

"Are you okay, Tori?" Cat asked, genuinely concerned.

The other girl blinked, seeming confused. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Where's your necklace?"

Ah, _that_ was it. The leathery choker that Tori had worn every day since he met her was nowhere to be found, its absence almost glaringly obvious from her bare neck. He'd never managed to find out what it meant, but still he thought that the fact that she'd taken it off meant _something_.

Tori's reaction (a slight twitch, almost imperceptible) was confirmation enough that the necklace was somehow related to why she'd called them here today.

"That's not important" she answered, very obviously avoiding the topic. "What matters is that I called you to tell you guys that... I've decided to help you. With West" she added when they failed to understand.

"Why?" Andre asked. "Not that I mind, it's just that..."

"You're wondering why I'm volunteering to protect her now when I was supposed to kill her and ended up losing everything" she said, with nothing short of absolute certainty. He nodded, looking uncomfortable, and she shrugged. "That's for me to know and for you to never figure out. My reasons are my own."

"How are you going to help us?" Cat asked.

From anyone else that might've sounded wrong, doubtful of the value of the offered help, but from Cat it was simply innocent curiosity. Even Tori knew that, which was most likely why she actually managed a brief, downright amused smile.

"Well, no offense, but you are simply too disorganized to be too much of a challenge to some Demons. They wouldn't even need to be as strong as I am to break into her house at night without any of you noticing a thing – and if whoever was sent to kill her _wasn't_ ordered to avoid collateral damage like I was..."

She allowed her words to trail off, but they didn't need her to complete the sentence to know what she meant – if Lucifer wasn't for some reason interested in leaving them alive, this would be long over.

(They would've certainly died when Tori was the one ordered to kill Jade.)

The Guardians agreed with her assessment (grudgingly in Andre's case, much to Beck's absolute delight), to which she simply raised an eyebrow before turning her gaze to her cousin, who straightened under the unimpressed stare.

"And _you_ are too weak" she said slowly. "Fallen Demons generally are, and tend to be happy spending their whole lives that way, but seeing as you want to protect someone who's been on Tartarus' kill list her whole life that's nothing but an obstacle. You can't protect West if you can't even protect yourself."

"I was kicked out when I was a kid, though" he pointed out. "It's not as if I could know anything about spellcasting."

"No, which is why I'm going to teach you. The basics first, then teleportation, invisibility and shields, and once you've mastered all that we'll start with offensive."

Beck blinked. "Uh... why not offensive magic first?" he asked.

She sighed, and for a moment she exuded the sort of exasperation that came from long familiarity with a particular brand of stupid. It kind of made Beck feel a two inches tall baby Demon who still hasn't managed to get their wings, which... was probably fair, considering _who_ he was talking to.

"Seriously, Beck. Do you honestly think you'd be able to stand two seconds against a fully grown medium-rank without even knowing how to cast a shield? I'm not teaching you anything about how to fight before you've learnt how to protect."

He opened his mouth, realized he couldn't even begin to refute that, then closed it. "You have a point."

Tori shook her head, and Beck was pleased to notice there was an amused glint in her eyes for a brief second before she was serious again.

"I'll be working with you most of the time, but you guys–" she added, looking at the Guardians "–need a lot of help too. If you have some hands-on experience in facing the kind of Demon who could fight an Archangel to a standstill, few Assassins that come after West will pose much of a challenge."

Translation: Tori was going to fight the Guardians until they could last half a minute against her. Beck kind of pitied them.

"You don't mean just straightforward fights, right?" Andre asked. "I mean, no offense, but considering how _you_ didn't attack us head on..."

Tori rolled her eyes. "Well, _of course_ I didn't – it wasn't part of my mission. But yeah, I don't mean _only_ fights, though we'll start with that. Once you've progressed a little, I'll teach you how Assassins _think_ , so you can be prepared to counter whatever bullshit they throw at you."

She hesitated for a moment, took a seat, ran a hand through her hair and sighed.

"Look, let me give you an example. An Assassin has been ordered to kill West. They have a week to do it, and they also have a blanket permission to cause collateral damage so long as no one unrelated to her results affected – that includes her parents, her Guardians, the family of her Guardians and the people she more often spends her time with. The Assassin is part of a middle-rank clan, comes from a fairly unremarkable line and has focused their career to mastering assassinations that can be easily covered as accidents caused by a careless victim. How could they attack, and what could you do to counter them?"

Everyone stared blankly at her for a moment, at first taken aback by the sudden hypothetical and later confused at what she even meant.

Then, Cat paled.

"Do you have something to say, Cat?" Tori asked.

"Uhm... The Assassin could stage a gas explosion, take out her whole family" she answered, looking uncomfortable. "But... I'm not sure how we could prevent something like that."

"Another scenario – no collateral forbidden, average Assassin with a penchant for mechanical tampering." At the blank looks she received, Tori sighed and leaned back, crossing her arms. "Come on, that one's easier. All it would take would be to cut the brakes of a truck just when West's crossing the street and casting a mild wide-area freezing spell to ensure no one can move to avoid an _accident_ – she can't move, no one can push her, the driver can't swerve."

"You speak like you have firsthand experience" Andre commented.

Beck looked back at his cousin just in time to register the dark look that momentarily took over her eyes, as if she was remembering something she wasn't particularly proud of.

"I was an Assassin for over ten years" she reminded them dryly. "Do you think there's anything I _haven't_ done in name of a mission? The _point_ is, the only reason West managed to live long enough to turn seventeen was just dumb luck. My objective is to help you make sure dumb luck _isn't_ the only reason why she turns twenty.

"Of course," she added, her voice taking a light tone that was nowhere in line with the faint frown she'd adopted, "that's assuming you lot can even accept a former Assassin's help."

Beck winced even as he shuffled closer to her and away from the Guardians. That was the first time she referred to Andre and Robbie's obvious prejudice and general attitude when it came to Demons, and he didn't want to be anywhere close to them if Tori was in just the right mood to pretend she didn't care.

Cat frowned at the other Guardians, showing exactly how much she appreciated being dumped in the same category as them when all she wanted was for Tori to consider her a close friend.

Much to Beck's delight, the duo shuffled a bit, seemingly uncomfortable at the negative attention, and were quick to assure her that they'd be honored to have help from a talented former Assassin in protecting their charge.

Personally, he thought that they were laying it on a bit too thick, especially considering that Beck, Cat and Tori were very much aware of what they really thought about Demons, but he wasn't complaining – because it was obvious that they were uncomfortable about the whole thing, and if having to compliment a Fallen Demon was making it worse for them, well... he wasn't the one who told them to have a stick up their respective behinds.

Besides, it amused Tori just enough for her to smirk for a few seconds, which was a definite plus in his eyes.

She was a skilled enough actress that no one suspected she was anything more than an American teenager who was ridiculously good at being a future pop star, but... singing was the only thing she truly enjoyed, the only thing that made her happy which she didn't bother to hide anywhere – and true that part of that was because it went along with the character she'd begun to build for herself the moment she was enrolled in Sherwood, but there was a _reason_ she'd chosen to sing above anything else.

Tori showing some honest emotion whenever she _wasn't_ singing was always a positive thing for the Vega-Oliver clan. Not that they'd ever tell her – she would probably close herself off _again_ just on principle.

But here she was, opening up to their little group of friends, volunteering to protect the girl who'd once been the reason she lost everything, offering to work with a trio of Guardian Angels and a Fallen Demon, willing to grow even closer to them through what she understood best – changing of her own free will.

She was finally leaving behind the Demon she'd been, embracing the girl she'd chosen to become.

What could possibly go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify: Each scene is narrated from only a particular character's point of view. Therefore, just because one character thinks things are one way doesn't mean it's true or that others think the same. Which is why Andre can swear he's open and accepting while others see him as an unrepentant bigot, or why everyone can think Tori begins to grow closer to the others at this point when really she's even more emotionally distant than she was before.


End file.
